Mountain Lake Public Elementary School holds annual Science Fair
Mountain Lake Public Elementary School (MLES) held it 2016 Science Fair this past Friday, March 18, in the elementary library. Fifteen science projects – involving 18 students from grades 3-6 – were entered in the fair. Judging was done by the Mountain Lake Public High School physics classes of Jayme Fast.
Of those participating, 10 entries were recognized with blue ribbons. Those entries have the opportunity to advance to the 2016 South Central/Southwest Minnesota Regional Science and Engineering Fair – Elementary Division (Grades 3-6) – on Saturday, April 30, at Myers Field House and Taylor Center on the campus of Minnesota State University-Mankato.
This annual regional fair attracts more than 1,200 projects from southern Minnesota. Nearly 600 volunteer judges and staff personnel take part in the fair.
The science fair project is the culmination of hard work, persistent investigation and in-depth experimentation by the participating student scientists. Taking part in a science fair project gives the student the opportunity to share his or her interests with parents, guardians, relatives, neighbors, teachers and fellow students – as well as the chance to be interviewed by judges.
Participation contributes to the education of students in the thinking process – from formulating the projects to actually doing the experiments and reporting the data. Being a part of this process may mean the beginning of a life-long fascination with science for the student.
To present a science fair project, the student scientists develop a hypothesis, plan a process to test that hypothesis, put that process into motion using various hands-on materials, see the process to it completion and then explain the resultse
Participating Mountain Lake students, their grade level, project titles and ribbon award (blue ribbon winners have the opportunity to advance to the Regional Science Fair) were as follows:
Blue Ribbons
+ Thaila Sengchan/Carsen Hopper (Third Grade) – “Fizzy Explosions.”
+ Tanner Schultz/Braxton Tollefson (Third Grade) – “Potato Power.”
+ Kody Wassman (Fourth Grade) – “Water vs. Water.”
+ Brice Anacker (Fifth Grade) – “Milk to Plastic.”
+ Avrom Buller (Fifth Grade) – “The Hamster Maze Runner.”
+ Brooke Naas (Fifth Grade) – “Melting the Ice!”
+ Harlan Munning (Sixth Grade) – “Glucose Number Rules.”
+ Wyatt Wall/Ian Penner (Sixth Grade) – “Electric Garden.”
+ Madison Hartle (Sixth Grade) – “Clean?”
+ Olivia Christians (Sixth Grade) – “Investigating Soil Erosion.
Red Ribbons
+ Khya Boldt (Third Grade) – “Popping Plants.”
+ Sawyer Carrison (Third Grade) – “Melting Ice.”
+ Alexis Lopez (Third Grade) – “Minty Flavors.”
+ Mareena Jepsen (Fourth Grade) – “Walking Water.”
+ Brayden Stewart (Fourth Grade) – “Take Flight.”
Local Science Fair coordinators are Pam Osland, elementary library media center paraprofessional and fourth-grade teacher Matt Anderson.
Below is a photo gallery from the 2016 MLES Science Fair:
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