Science Fair

We always do some groaning when it's science fair time.  This year Devan & Renae managed to pick ideas that were fun for them and they ended up getting awards in their grade level.

Devan got first in his test of what melts ice the best/fastest.  He put table salt, rock salt, sugar, sand and nothing on three ice cubes.  Each substance had its own bowl.  He kept these bowls in the frig for an hour and then measured the amount of water melted.  After that he let them all finish melting at room temp and measured the remaining water.  That way he was able to find the total amount of water in the cubes (ice cubes are not the same size) and figure a percentage that was melted in the first step.  His hypothesis was right....rock salt won.

Renae got second place in her cookie project.  She made 4 different batches of chocolate chip cookies and changed the type of sugar she used. She used white sugar, brown sugar, honey, and splenda.  She then measured the height and diameter of twelve cookies from each batch to get an average.  She was surprised to see how changing only the sugar made such a difference in size and texture.

Dwight did a project with a friend on whether gender makes a difference in what you see in an optical illusion.  They found that gender does not make a difference but that most people see what is darker ink.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of Dwight's board.