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Austintown school students sway judges at science fair
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Lexxi Haluska, an eighth-grader at St. Joseph and Immaculate Heart of Mary School, poses in front of her science-fair project. Sixth- and eighth-graders presented their projects Wednesday for multiple judges.
SEE ALSO: Chaney's STEM Science Fair
By Susan Tebben
AUSTINTOWN
Trampolines, stereos and softballs are all parts of sixth- and eighth-graders’ lives, but St. Joseph Immaculate Heart of Mary School students showed their passions in new ways Wednesday at an Experimental Design Science Fair.
Technology and career aspiration in science drove the 46 kids in the parish center, such as sixth-grader Chris Smith.
“It’s cool because we get to build other projects, and see other projects get built,” Chris said, standing in front of his experiment on crystal radio and how sound travels through different materials.
Chris said the project was a step in the right direction for his goal to become an engineer.
To prepare for the science fair, the students came up with an idea, presented a hypothesis and a conclusion and recorded their data in a journal.
The presentations took practice, and Travis Saxton, a sixth-grader who tested the stretching limits of rubber bands, said he presented in front of his class to stop his nervousness. Travis’ project had a variable, dependent variables and controlled variables, with an element of fun in his desire to see if cold temperatures could make higher bounces on a trampoline as opposed to warmer temperatures.
“This project was a lot about physics, and I read a lot about it,” Travis said. “I think I would like to study physics.”
The pressure of competing was all through Samantha Zarlengo’s project, titled “Under Pressure.” The eighth-grader used her love of softball to create a project testing the bounce of a softball in difference temperatures.
“I like how challenging [the fair] is,” Samantha said.
The students were under the scrutiny of veteran judges, used to judging and competing in the fairs.
Former Ursuline student and teacher John Ulicney has been judging science fairs for 40 years and remembers his days as a science fair competitor, even as his grandchildren begin to compete. His granddaughter was in the running for awards at Wednesday’s fair. He was joined in judging by Bob Gartland, a retired research engineer for reinforcements for Goodyear.
Science fairs “have changed in the age of computers and the web so there is more researching online,” Gartland said. “But they are still required to have text references, they still have to go to the library. Part of the project is designed so they learn how to show research.”
Things have changed in the actual presentation as well, Ulicney said. Students now have to show a hypothesis and proof of their hypothesis, bringing the scientific method more into light than in previous years.
“A hypothesis is good, but getting a successful hypothesis is not always important,” Ulicney said. “If we could prove a hypothesis all the time, the world’s problems would be solved, but doing the testing is also an important part of science.”
He has judged many students and seen the careers that can get their start at science fairs.
Ulicney watched one student win a $10,000 scholarship based on an idea for a science fair.
Judging, for Ulicney and Gartland, is not all about being critical.
“We write positive comments,” Ulicney said. “The idea is not to destroy them, it’s to encourage them.”
Winners were announced at a ceremony Wednesday evening.