Hank Voltz, left, Kaylyn Easterly, and Jonah Comstock hold up their presentations from Thursday's science fair. Voltz took first place, Easterly took second, and Comstock took third.
If you wanted an answer to an unexpected question, Thursday was a great time to be at Stikine Middle School.
Among the questions posed (and answers attempted) at the annual sixth grade science fair were: which brand of hair tie can hold the most weight? Which type of bait do squirrels and juncos prefer? Does listening to up-tempo music increase your blood pressure? Which school has the most bacteria?
Students have worked on the questions, and the experiments and accompanying displays, since February, according to Stikine Middle School teacher Winston Davies, who oversees the annual fair.
"We spent about two weeks of classtime getting the boards done," he said. "The experiments are done at home."
The science fair is intended to guide students through the basic steps of the scientific method, from hypothesis to conclusion, Davies said.
"Science isn't just doing demonstrations and experiments just to do them," he said. "There's a process that you follow to get accurate results."
The fair also touches on integrating higher math functions and data displays into the final familiar portfolios.
"It's a good way to integrate math, reading and writing," he said.
The projects developed for the fair also enhance computer literacy skills, he said.
Some students drew their questions and presentations from everyday life, like Adriana Larrabee, who found that a certain type of Vidal Sassoon hairband can support 8,753 grams. Adriana used multiple trials and averaged the weights to reach her conclusion.
"I did this experiment because I have a lot of hair ties," she said.
Juncos, it turns out, prefer to eat hulled sunflower seeds, according to research conducted by Kaylyn Easterly, who won second place and $20 based on votes collected by science fair participants.
"Don't use thistle if you're trying to attract juncos," she said.
Squirrels, meanwhile, will eat anything, according to research conducted by Hank Voltz, who took first prize and $30. He came up with the idea of trapping squirrels with different baits – sunflower seeds, peanut butter, corn, and cups of noodles – on his own.
"I go squirrel hunting a lot," he said. "I trap 'em a lot, so I know what bait to use."
The research was an attempt to quantify what he had already known as a long time squirrel-hunter.
Listening to up-tempo music, it turns out, does affect your blood pressure, according to research conducted by Jonah Comstock, who learned how to take blood pressure specifically for his project. He played soothing instrumental music for the low-key music and up-beat electro dance music, then took blood pressure readings to test the results. Comstock took third prize and $10 for his research, and says he learned something else.
"I'm going to listen to some soothing music before I go to the hospital," he said.
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