Science Fair Success!

I've been silent on this space all week because we've been getting ready for the science fair. Today was the big day. It was such a great event. When we arrived, there was one long table set up for displays. We were some of the first people to arrive, and it looked like it was going to be a small group. Closer to 10:00 a.m., kids started arriving. More tables were brought in. The room was soon filled to capacity with creative displays of science. To say that the kids embraced this project would be an understatement. There were approximately 30 projects on display ranging from growing mushrooms to mummifying a chicken (bought from the supermarket!)

Airon's robot arm "Lefty" was quite an attention-grabber. Airon was a very courteous host who allowed everyone to take a turn picking up a block and dropping it in a cup. The kids loved it! His display featured pictures drawn by Lefty, as well as photos of robots at work in the real world. He also included some index cards with questions about robots on them. It was a very hands-on presentation.


Soren's display was plant galls. He collected and identified galls on our property. His project was very unique. Neither he nor I knew that so many people did not know what galls were. He was very informative. People would stop by to chat, and he would explain his project and how he looked through the book to identify them.

This was one of my favorite parts of Soren's display:

Spencer got a lot of praise for his Life Cycle of a Plant project. He did watercolor paintings of each stage of plant growth. In addition, he acted out the life cycle in pictures. So cute! He included some seed art and a bar graph he made after measuring his real seedlings (which we accidentally left at home--oops). Spencer made some "plant stages" cards for people to flip through while they were visiting his display.

Here is a little collage of his photos. I could not figure out how to caption them on the collage. So, the captions are as follows:
1. A Seed 2. The Seed Coat Opens... 3. ...and sprouts! 4. It becomes a full-size plant. 5. The plant flowers... 6. ...and bears fruit 7. It spreads its seeds. 8. Then it dies (notice the tongue!)
(I just realized, I got the photos for 1. and 2. swapped. I am too tired tonight to sort it out.)
Click on the collage to enlarge it.