Grade 9 students used their creativity and demonstrated their knowledge of science during this year's annual science fair at Innisfail High School.
Students presented a variety of projects and topics ranging from wind energy to memory, agriculture and sleep during the Feb. 24 event.
“We have a total of 51 projects and there's roughly about 90 students taking part,” said Peggy Freeman, Grade 9 science teacher. “There are some outstanding projects. Just by looking at them and talking to the students, (you know) they definitely put a lot of time and effort into them.”
Leslee Leischner was one of those students. She chose to do her science fair project on the impact of pH (power of hydrogen) levels.
“I'm a farmer and I do lots of stuff with agriculture and plants,” said Leischner. “I thought it would be interesting to do a project that revolves around primary producers in plants, to see if I could figure out what we could do to increase crop yields and help our farm produce more grain and barley,” she added.
Project partners Carson Weststrate and Zac Bettesworth designed a project to showcase homemade household batteries.
“We learned that household items around the house can be used to make a battery,” said Bettesworth. “We used a zinc nail and copper. They're called electrodes. We put the electrodes inside (multiple jars) and because of the items we used, it produced a charge,” explained Bettesworth.
Grade 12 students completed judging for the science fair during the morning, said Freeman, with each project judged several times.
During the afternoon, middle and high school students were invited to attend an open house and view the science fair projects. In the evening between 6 and 7 p.m. parents and members of the public were given an opportunity to view the projects and awards were given out at that time.
The final science fair winning results were released the following day. In the Applied category, Paulina Wolswinkel was first for ‘What's the Biofuture', while in the Earth section Leslee Leischner came first for ‘How PH impacts primary producers'.
Kirk Rieberger and Ben Jud earned first place in the Life category for their ‘Sleep patterns' project, while Colton Toliver and Dawson Girard came out on top with their ‘The rate of dissolving' submission in the Physical section. The three overall winners were Rieberger and Jud at number 1, followed by Melissa Bennett and Laura rib for their ‘Musical Neuroscience' project, and at number 3 was Paulina Wolswinkel for her ‘What's the Biofuture' submission.
“From here we take the top five to 10 projects and go on to Red Deer (regional science fair) the weekend of March 11 and 12,” said Freeman. “The projects are re-judged because (our winners) compete among all students within Central Alberta, and hopefully they can make it on to nationals from there.”
Peggy Freeman
"There are some outstanding projects. Just by looking at them and talking to the students, (you know) they definitely put a lot of time and effort into them."
