Quinn Rodewald in front of his science project " Does your shoe size really affect distance of a football?"
The F.E. Miley Gifted and Talented Program held a Science Fair with presenters form the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade.
The 4th grade presenters were: David Morsette with "M&M Survival Challenge; Keira Oats with "How Big Crystals Get!"; Quinn Rodewald with "Does Shoe size really Affect Distance of a Football?; and Elaina Weaver with "Coke and Mentos Explosion".
The 5th grade presenters were Brianna Terry with "How does Heart Rate Change with Exercise?"; and Griffin Terry with "What Liquids Make Ice Melt the Fastest?"
The 6th grade presenters were Severin Heimbigner with "Camera Comparison"; Hunter Moore with "Cat Handedness"; and Kadee Sternberg with "The Science Behind Eggs."
I interviewed a number of the students and loved every minute of it. I thought sharing one of the conclusions with you of a grade school student would be fun and then comparing it to the conclusion of Hope Gasvoda's First Place winner for the High School Science Fair.
Quinn Rodewald said, "My name is Quinn, I am in the 4th grade. I go to F. E. Miley. In my project, I am doing if you have a big foot will it go farther than if you have a small foot. I chose this topic because I like football and this could help me punt. I love to play football with my friends. I did this experiment because football players should know this. People should know this because it could change football."
Hope Gasvoda's science project explained in common language would be "Can Barley straw be used for Ethanol? However, her true conclusion reads, "This experiment was performed to determine the most efficient pH buffer for the production of glucose in lignocellulosic biomass as a result of the enzymatic effects of cellulase. The lignocellulosic biomass used was barley straw, and it was pretreated using manual grinding and a five-minute steam treatment. The pH buffers were prepared in a range of 3-8. After the addition of 1.0 g of barley straw and 0.5 mL of cellulase to 10 mL of each pH buffer, the glucose levels were tested. The hypothesis was that the pH 7 buffer would produce cellulase most efficiently because ethanol has a pH of 7.33. The results indicated that the pH 5-8 buffers were most efficient, however, results of t-tests showed that the difference between the average glucose concentrations throughout the pH buffers was not statistically significant. This means that cellulase broke down lignocellulosic biomass and produced glucose efficiently across all six pH buffers."
