Eighth grade science fair winners

On January 26, four Thermopolis Middle School 8th grade students all won first place awards at the Powell regional science fair, each in their own categories. Jaelyn Steadman, Mac McCumber, Orion Jenks and Brian Weaver all brought home wins. 

Science teacher Aimee Kay said, “I’ve never done a science fair before in my 29 years of teaching. I told the kids we started back at the end of November. The kids have been coming in on Tuesday mornings to do their projects. Heather Love, my student teacher and I are here for support. But mostly we’ve been pretty hands off, giving a little bit of feedback here and there. But the kids came up with their own investigative ideas…There’s a large variety of sections or topics. Each kid was in their own category. In order to qualify for state, they had to be in the top three. All the kids placed at the top. There were four kids, three projects.”

Orion Jenks and Brian Weaver’s project was trying different methods of how many times you wrap wire around to create Tesla coils.

Kay said, “I was impressed with that because they didn’t get the results they wanted, but they still took it and presented their idea and then just talked about different changes they would make in their process, which is what scientists do. They make mistakes and they brainstorm what went wrong and they go back and try it again. Even though they didn’t get the results that they wanted, they still, because of the method that they followed, had a really strong project because they had already identified some areas where they would make changes and try again.”

Mac McCumber’s project was to determine if adding a heater to your chicken coop would increase egg production.

Kay said, “He ran a couple of weeks where he didn’t have a heater and then ran the same amount of time using a heater and tracked the egg production and came up with some good results. He hypothesized that egg production should go up if you add a heater. And that did happen. He was actually done during the cold spell. So that was nice because no chickens had to go without heat.”

Jaelyn Steadman tested which was more effective, using antibacterial soft soap or hand sanitizer.

Kay said, “She ran a control group growing some germs and then designed a very solid investigation. I think her method was really solid and found out that antibacterial soap works better than hand sanitizer and had some really solid data to prove that.”

Kay described her observation of her student’s project as compared to the other projects at the fair. She said, “I felt really good about the quality of their work. I was super proud to be connected with them because they did very well thought out projects. They were well organized and their level of communicating was what they learned. They were nervous because they’ve never obviously done it either. But, it was fun to see their interactions and then practice and support each other. I think it was a really good experience.”

The state science fair is in March at the University of Wyoming. Orion Jenks and Brian Weaver are considering taking their project. It is a three-day event.  

Kay added, “Jaelyn Steadman and Mac McCumber will not be competing because of the nature of their investigations, there were some forms that needed to be filled out that we filled out, but we didn’t get them approved in the proper sequence by the proper people. That was my responsibility, so they are not able to compete at the state level because of, basically, my mistake. It was a procedural error. I think they appreciated the fact that they knew that it was my first time and that we’d see how it goes.”

Kay described the approval process as “more complicated than I anticipated. I feel really, really good about what the kids did and their projects. it was kind of frustrating that it is as complicated as it is, especially at the middle school level.”

When it comes to Kay’s entire 8th grade science students, she had many things to say. “Look at what they do! These kids do an experiment of some sort every single day. The fact that they did well in the science fair didn’t surprise me because last week I gave them some equipment. One group had magnets, one group had rubber bands and blocks, and another group had sand and marbles, and they designed their own investigation to test how distance affects the different types of force. Magnetic, elastic potential energy or gravitational potential energy. I just throw it out there and go answer this question. They have to design it. They’ve done it with, how can you design an investigation that shows conservation of matter? And then they have to gather data and create graphs. 

Kay continued and said, “These kids do science all the time. We broke a bowling ball last week while investigating. They helped me design an investigation to see how speed affects kinetic energy. And we were rolling bowling balls into each other at different speeds. And that one busted. This is just them doing what they do. These kids know science. The level of creativity is like, I will show a video on the board and go all right. What are some investigative questions? And they come up with these incredible ideas. We don’t always have time to investigate them, but the fact that they can come up with them is pretty impressive. They’re fun to watch. They really get into science.”