10 MLES junior scientists take project findings to Regional Science Fair
Ten Mountain Lake Public Elementary School (MLES) junior scientists took the answers they discovered to the questions they asked as projects to the 2014 South Central/Southwest Minnesota Regional Science and Engineering Fair – Elementary Division (Grades 3-6), held in the Myers Field House and Taylor Center on the campus of Minnesota State University-Mankato, this past Saturday, April 26. Three of those students returned home with purple ribbons, two earned blue ribbons, four were presented with red ribbons and one achieved a green ribbon.
The students advanced to the regional after earning blue ribbons at the MLES 2014 Science Fair, held in the elementary library on Friday, March 7.
This annual regional fair attracts more than 1,200 projects from southern Minnesota. Nearly 600 volunteer judges and staff personnel take part in the fair.
The science fair project is the culmination of hard work, persistent investigation and in-depth experimentation by the participating student scientists.
Taking part in a science fair project gives the student the opportunity to share his or her interests with parents, guardians, relatives, neighbors, teachers and fellow students – as well as the chance to be interviewed by judges. Participation contributes to the education of students in the thinking process – from formulating the projects to actually doing the experiments and reporting the data. Being a part of this process may mean the beginning of a life-long fascination with science for the student.
To present a science fair project, the student scientists develop a hypothesis, plan a process to test that hypothesis, put that process into motion using various hands-on materials, see the process to it completion and then explain the results.
Participating Mountain Lake students by grade, their project titles and ribbon awards were as follows:
Third Grade
* Brice Anacker, “Electrolysis of Water,” Red Ribbon.
* Brooke Naas, “Blow It Up,” Red Ribbon.
* Alana Morey, “Cricket Behavior,” Purple Ribbon.
Fourth Grade
* Caden Swoboda, “Ramp of Friction,” Red Ribbon.
* Olivia Christians, “‘Don’t Smash Me,’ Says Soil,” Purple Ribbon.
* Harlan Munning, “The Absorbent Wars,” Red Ribbon.
Fifth Grade
* Eryn Friesen, “Shiny Teeth,” Blue Ribbon.
* Carly Osland, “Is it Safe to Eat? (The 5-Second Rule),” Blue Ribbon.
* Hana Bergling, “Water on Water,” Green Ribbon.
Sixth Grade
* Brett Willaby, “Does Direction Matter?,” Purple Ribbon.
Local Science Fair coordinators are Jean Haberman, library media center advisor; Pam Osland, library media center parapraofessional and fourth-grade teacher Matt Anderson.
