the science fair

It has been a while....so I thought I'd share the final products from the science fair.

Sam did a study of catapults (he's turning out to be VERY interested in history, so he kept wanting to put more of a historical slant on it....and since the science and physics of catapults is pretty much like a foreign language to me, I let him!) He did test a number of different objects to see how far each would be thrown by the catapult...I can't remember what went the farthest. The stale marshmallow, maybe? Oh, and he got to build the catapult himself with help from Grandpa B.

Joe did a project called "beach erosion", which we found on a website that has hundreds of science fair ideas. Basically, he took a paint pan and made a little "beach" with sand and water....bobbed a pencil up and down in the water for different lengths of time and recorded what the waves did to the beachline. It was pretty cool. Joe added his Lemonheads box for decoration...a "billboard".

Peter made a battery out of pennies, nickels, and little bits of paper towel soaked in vinegar and salt. He and Tim used a meter to read how many volts were produced by the battery depending on how many coins were stacked. (Again, thank you science website.) He didn't get to bring the actual battery to the science fair because the salt and vinegar was causing the coins to produce all sorts of green gunk. But we took pictures and made a cool poster with the readouts.

Janie did her project on nutrition. She had all kinds of "lift-the-flap" questions about how different vitamins and minerals affect the body and in what foods to find them. She made a few sample menus of healthy meals, and a few of unhealthy meals...a very cute idea! She works very hard on projects like this....a perfectionist...and loves to see her ideas come to fruition.

The woman who organized the science fair did a fantastic job. There were about 25 kids who entered projects, and all of them were very interesting. Each student received a certificate of recognition, and there were even cash prizes for each age-range winner (the entries were judged by students from Augie's science department). This may sound very silly, but I was so intimidated by the idea of science fair...and admittedly our projects were not the most "scientific" - we had no theories or hypotheses, etc. But we did what we set out to do and got our feet wet, so to speak, so next year shouldn't seem so intimidating. I will say that I'm not sure I want to attempt assisting FOUR projects at one time, though. WHEW!!!!