Ever wonder what worms compost the best? Or how blood interacts with over-the-counter medications?
Well, elementary and middle school students wondered these same things and posed these same questions for their science fair projects.
School science fairs were precursors to the Southern Arizona Regional Science & Engineering Fair, or SARSEF, competition, which will be held March 16-20 at the Tucson Convention Center.
Winners of school science fairs are entered into the SARSEF competition, which is open to students in grades K-12.
Coronado K-8 School seventh-grader Ashley Jones will be at the event with her first-place project on blood interactions.
Ashley's own experience with leukemia was the inspiration behind her project.
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She was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 9 and is now 3 1/2 1/2 years into remission.
Her project tested how different over-the-counter medications interact with blood.
"I thought it was interesting because they never knew what caused my cancer," Ashley said. "They thought my blood was thinner because of the regular medicines I took. So I decided to test the different medications to see which ones thinned the blood the most."
Her tests determined that ibuprofen produced the least viscosity.
Ashley used her own blood, which she has professionally drawn for cancer checks, for her project.
Her project was just one of the more than 500 projects produced by some 800 fourth- through eighth-graders at Coronado.
Over at Butterfield Elementary School, about 250 K-6 students took part in the school science fair.
Sixth-graders were required to complete projects.
Yasmine Kot and Hannah Wittke, both sixth-graders, completed a project together.
The 12-year-olds wanted to determine what type of music would compel Hannah's chinchilla Meeko to finish a maze in the shortest time.
Meeko scurried through the maze listening to techno, rock, a soft tune and in silence.
"Chinchillas are really smart and music doesn't really affect them like it does humans," Hannah said. "It goes with its instincts."
Yasmine and Hannah's project received first place and their project will go on to the SARSEF competition.
"It's awesome. We wanted to go to SARSEF. We now get to go," Yasmine said.
More Kids' projects
http://go.azstarnet.com /sciencefairs
Science fair projects
Connor Hagan and Jared Agron
School and grade: Coronado K-8 School seventh-graders
Project: The two friends wanted to determine what effect smell stimulus had on the ability to identify flavor. Connor and Jared, both 13, had 10 volunteers smell an onion while tasting different flavored lollipops.
Conclusion: "It's really hard to identify flavors when you smell something different," Connor said. During his research, Connor said he learned that the nose is 25,000 times more powerful than your taste.
Final thoughts: "We learned a lot about the scientific process," Jared said. "It was fun to work with a partner because we both had input instead of just one person."
Christina Choh
School and grade: Coronado fifth-grader
Project: Christina placed 10 red worms, 10 earthworms and 10 mealworms in coffee grounds for three weeks to see which worm would compost the best.
Conclusion: Earthworms beat out red worms and mealworms. Red worms were a close second, and most of the mealworms actually died, 10-year-old Christina said.
Final thoughts: "I learned a lot of things about worms," she said. "I never actually knew mealworms molted."
