Teacher hypothesizes 2008 is the best science fair yet

VICTORIA BARBER

February 29, 2008 at 8:58AM AKST

Unalaska’s small gym was packed with everything from plants in paper cups to fizzing model volcanoes to working wind turbines at this year’s Unalaska School Science Fair on Saturday, Feb. 23.

Junior high science teacher John Paden said that the 2008 fair has been the best so far. "Past years have had good individual projects, but this year everyone did such a good job," Paden said. "The kids really worked hard and had very good results."

The teacher said that about 130 students, working in teams and individually, presented a project for science fair. More than 90 large, cardboard displays lined rows of tables in the gym.

Paden estimated that most students had spent five or six weeks constructing the displays, which were covered in colorful construction paper and emblazoned with titles such as "Bubbularium" and "What Juice Will Clean Pennies Best?"

Moses Dirks, Steven Gregory and Lynn Norstad judged the projects based on the students’ background knowledge, hypothesis, the quality of display board and how well the students’ experiments related to their hypothesis.

The award for best overall project went to Bianca Barrera, an eighth-grader who won the Unalaska Science Fair and her division of the State Science Fair last year.

Barrera spent about a month on her project, which studied the effects that four different plant foods and four different soils had on plant specimens.

Barrera said that she wanted to study the topic as a follow-up to her science project last year, which compared the way that plants grew under lamps vs. how they grew in the sun.

Barrera said that science is one of her favorite subjects. This summer, she will present her project at the state fair in Palmer.

The overall winner was selected from seventh- and eighth-grade projects.

Paden said that teachers Heather Beard, Katie Wolfe and Cathy Lew had been instrumental to the success of this year’s science fair.

Prizewinners

Fifth grade: 1 Shannon McConnell, 2 Kenesha Price, 3 Tricia Fernandez.

Sixth grade: 1 Charity Haskins, 2 Davis Sheffield, 3 Ashley Pham.

Seventh grade: 1 Rachel Linus and Claudine Tungul, 2 Karina Garay and Abbygale Jensen, 3 Maia Kome and Elizabeth Fierro.

Eighth grade: 1 Bianca Barrera, 2 Ryan Haskins, 3 Bethany Hladick.

Victoria Barber can be reached at (907) 342-2424 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 424.