Solid entries, firm judging mix well at science fair
SILER CITY — A biology class at Northwood High School got Christopher Esther to thinking about what Chatham County residents are drinking when they turn on their taps. That water comes from Jordan Lake. The man-made reservoir contains nutrients that cause algal blooms, which are overgrowths of algae in water. That’s not good. Algal blooms can be toxic. So Christopher experimented to determine which aquatic plants would best absorb those nutrients and keep bad blooms from binging.
His approach caught the eyes of judges during the 2017-18 Chatham County Schools Science Fair at Jordan-Matthews High School in December. Christopher was the overall winner. He earned a plaque, $100 and an opportunity to compete at the regional level Feb. 17 in Greensboro.
EUREKA MOMENT| Go discovering with Christoper Esther
All first-place science-fair winners from grades 3-12 in Chatham County Schools (CCS) earned spots in the regionals.
“The science fair and the projects that were submitted demonstrate the awesome potential our students have in applying the reading, writing, math and science standards our students are learning to real-life problems. The projects show our students' curiosity and their desire to investigate the world around them,” said Dr. Charles A. Aiken, the district’s executive director for middle grades and Title III instruction.
In the movie “Men in Black,” actor Will Smith as Agent J was in the business of keeping aliens in check. During the CCS science fair, Horton Middle School seventh-grader Tristian Jones — wearing a black suit that had him looking an awful lot like Agent J — was debriefing with a couple of judges about his mission. He’d teamed with Horton seventh-grader Ava Jones on a project called Microbe Infestation Busters. Instead of eradicating extraterrestrials, Ava and Tristian were bent on exterminating bugs — that would be germs.
“I made my whole career working on bugs’ behavior and what they do to human beings,” said Fred Sparling, a retired infectious-diseases physician who served as a judge during the CCS science fair.
Jane Gallagher used to be a scientist with the United States Environmental Protection Agency. She also was a judge during the CCS science fair, where she made the rounds with Sparling. Those two examined the work of Ava and Tristian, who’d set out to determine if homemade cleaning concoctions killed germs as well as store-bought products.
Ava and Tristian conducted a comprehensive experiment — too comprehensive, according to Sparling.
“Sometimes less is more,” Sparling told them. “You need to keep the number of variables small, so you can keep it simple.”
To be clear, Ava and Tristian produced one of the best projects in the district. Their work placed second among CCS sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders in the category for biological science pertaining to animal sciences, plant sciences and microbiology. Sparling and Gallagher really liked what Ava and Tristian put together. But the students, as well as other participants in the science fair, will be in high school or college before long, so now's the time for them to grasp scientific best practices, Gallagher explained.
“This group, in particular, is very sophisticated compared to when I grew up,” Gallagher said. “Because of that, we [as judges] were able to push back on them.”
“Just telling everybody that, ‘You’re wonderful,’ doesn’t help anybody,” Sparling said.
The young scientists embraced the critique.
“We haven’t had judges like that,” Ava said.
ROLL CALL
Scroll inside the box for a list of the the top finishers in the science fair.
Published Dec. 12, 2017