Students Participate in Science Fair

By John Earp

This week, students from Jal Elementary and Jal Junior High School participated in the annual science fair. Science teacher, Mr. Joe Soliz, has been organizing the science fair for the past several years. Students are encouraged to choose a topic for their project as well as the design of the study, gather background information about the history, significance, facts and methods of study for their chosen topic, to prepare a bibliography of their source, decide on the problem and the hypothesis, define independent variables, dependent variables, constant variables, list materials, and write the procedure. Students were further instructed to run at least three trials of the procedure and to collect data measurements, construct a graph showing the averages of their results and write a summary of the findings. Some of the topics studied included “Which detergent breaks up oil the best?”, “What type of battery makes toys run longest?”, “What form of yeast makes bread rise fastest?”, “What fabrics absorb dye best?”, “How is water temperature affected by water depth?”, “How does surface texture affect the bounce of a ball?”, among many others.