Science Fair - Lower School

The scientific method

They had heard the facts, but Fifth Graders Jake Overton and Drew Harbin decided to see for themselves if texting and eating really does distract drivers.

Trey Smith and Keyon Kazempour were curious about which household appliance uses the most energy.

Patrick Aherrera wanted to know which water source would have the most bacteria.
As budding scientists, they joined other Fourth and Fifth Grade students in developing science fair projects.

“The main reason we have a science fair is to promote the process of scientific learning through discovery,” said science lab teacher Jeff Johnson. “The students are challenged to use the scientific method in a practical way to prove their ideas or assumptions about their topics.”

The students strengthen many skills in the process, including creativity, cooperation, and reasoning, he says. “The cause and effect nature of most of the projects also forces the students to evaluate, and possibly reassess, previously held opinions of how they believed something should occur, or how someone should behave.”

Johnson begins teaching the scientific method in early elementary grades. “The lessons and experiments that we complete in the lab simply reinforce the discovery process that their regular teachers begin in the classroom.” Fourth and Fifth Grade teachers incorporate the process in their science instruction, and computer lab gives students the skills to complete the accompanying report.

“It was really interesting to see how the information would fall together,” said Sarah Carraher, who discovered that adults were a little better than children at auditory memory, and children were a bit better visually.

By using a driving simulator, Jake and Drew discovered that it really isn’t wise to eat or text while driving. Trey and Keyon know the oven uses a lot of energy.

And Patrick found out that ditch water was filled with bacteria. “Even though the toilet bowl water wasn’t bad,” Patrick said, “I wouldn’t drink from it.”