Eureka! Sippican Elementary hosts science fair

MARION — They may be small — but their minds are big. Students in first through sixth grade gathered at Sippican Elementary Wednesday, March 26 to show off their skills at the annual science fair.

Students were judged by grade based on their knowledge of their projects, quality and interest in what they learned. Judges walked around the event and had the young scientists explain their research.

First grader Jolee Woods, 7, did a project about plant growth using hormones. Her project included seeds for flowers and fruits and was conducted over 11 days. She said her dad helped her and that she wanted to plant the seeds at home when the fair was over.

“Plant hormones are like special chemicals that help them grow and develop and respond to things around them like light and watering,” she said.

With more help from her father, Woods used big words like “ethylene” and “cytokinin” in her project. She hopes her watermelon seeds will grow this summer so that she can eat them.

Third graders Maggie Becker, 8, and Michaela Healy, 9, used humans in their experiments. Testing the hypothesis that sight affects taste, the pair thought that if people could see a jellybean before eating it — they’d be more likely to guess the flavor.

“It was amazing — a lot of Taber students liked it because we gave them free jellybeans,” Becker said. “There’s like a million flavors of Jelly Belly’s.”

Healy estimated that with their help — over 2,000 jellybeans were eaten over the course of the project.

“My favorite part was decorating and making the graphs,” Healy said.

Sixth grader Gia Goodwin, 12, also involved food in her project. Basing her hypothesis around replacing ingredients in a recipe, she wanted to see what resulted in the best tasting cookie. From burning her hands to trying to give away the burnt results, Goodwin said she is tired of cookies.

She baked over 300 cookies, and pooled from 72 people for her experiment. She was inspired by a food truck project she did in her enrichment class and said she thinks one day she might operate one herself.

“I’ve learned that you don’t really wanna change the recipe because everybody just liked the original,” she said.

The Enrichment teacher at Sippican Elementary, Chelsey Lawrence has been in charge of the science fair for 11 years. She said that she loves to see what her kids can come up with on their own.

“It’s fun for the families,” she said. “They have something to do together— something to learn together.”

Plants swept the science fair this year as each grade’s top projects took first place. Jolee Woods won first place for first grade, Sagan Tomasik-Jenks for second grade, Hailey Costa for third grade, Amelia Whinnem, Zoe Callina and Neriah Andrewski for fourth grade, Aidan Zhou, Matthew Oien and Rowan Farquarson for fifth grade and Samuel Becker for sixth grade.