INNISFAIL – The what, how and why of science were on display at Innisfail High School’s annual Science Fair.
During the one-day event at the school on Feb. 28, Grade 9 students conducted and demonstrated a variety of experiments, innovations and research projects in areas that included physics, biology, chemistry and psychology.
“The Science Fair is an opportunity for students to do a science project. There’s three different types of projects they can do,” said Jennifer Leinweber, science teacher at the high school. “They fall into four different categories. We have applied science, life science, environmental science and physical science.”
Close to 90 students presented 48 projects on a variety of topics, some of which included testing the durability of a metal bolt, determining the lifespan of fruit in various substances, the difference in electrical conductivity between lemons and potatoes, seasonal affective disorder and the neurological effects of nicotine.
One of those students was Rowan Jacques who conducted an experiment on how different genres of music affect the heart rate.
“The one genre that had the most people with an increase (in heart rate) was rock music,” said Jacques, noting classical music had the lowest number of people with an increase.
“Although people had different likes and dislikes (in music), their body reacted in a different way to the music, including their heart rate,” she added.
Leinweber said she was impressed with many of the projects on display.
"There’s some really great projects,” she said. “Students can investigate problems that they might not get to in our class time or explore things that might interest them. (Projects do) relate a lot to the curricular objectives of (Grade 9) science in general. We do a lot of answer and questions, predict outcomes using hypothesis, analyze data and then come to a conclusion based on that data,” explained Leinweber.
Students were judged on their science projects and awarded for top (projects) overall and first, second and third places for each category.
Family members, friends and the community were invited to view the Science Fair during an open house that evening.
“The top 10 projects overall have the opportunity to move on to the Central Alberta Regional Science Fair at the end of March at Red Deer College,” Leinweber concluded.
