By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
The fair came to Bucyrus High School Wednesday, while it was not the kind of fair you would see at the fairgrounds, it still featured judged presentations.
Hosted by the Bucyrus Science Club, the Science Fair at Bucyrus High School was held for students in grades 7-12. With projects displayed in the middle school gym, an open house was held from 5-6 p.m. for people to view the students’ work. While the open house was taking place, students awaited their time to be judged in the library.
Beginning in November students were able to choose a project of their choice. After selecting their project the students then worked on the research paper side of the project in their English class, with the last few weeks honing in the presentation and making the art for their displays. Lauren Kohler selected teeth whitening and which product works the best for whitening teeth. Kohler explains how she set up her project.
“I stained ceramic cups, then used different brands of whitening toothpaste on them,” Kohler said. “I wanted to see the one that worked the most efficiently and I found that Crest 3-D White worked the best.”
Sarah Lipscomb chose blood spatter for her project. Lipscomb explained the process she used for her experiment.
“I wanted to see if I was a crime scene investigator and I showed up to a crime scene and there was blood spatter on the wall if I could predict its origin,” Lipscomb said. “I did lots of research on forensics. I ended up taking a sponge and using simulated blood, I then hit it with a hammer at different distances to make it splatter everywhere. Then I used trigonometry to connect it with strings to find the angle and connect it back.”
Do video games cause an increase in stress? That was one of the questions Sebastion Ely had pondered with his science fair project. While he found most games did not, one genre of video game did increase the pulse rate of players.
“Nothing really affects the pulse except for horror video games which consistently increased the pulse,” Ely explained.
Bucyrus physics, chemistry, and biology teacher Pat Hargis explained her favorite part of the science fair.
“Today, the payoff pitch when they show off their project and they are so proud, and then the parents come in and see their kid’s hard work,” Hargis said.
Judging for the science fair took place at 6 p.m. Projects with a superior rating will be given the opportunity to attend the District Science Fair at the Ohio State University Marion Branch.