Do you think that your dog’s mouth is cleaner than yours? Then you may not be flossing enough. Have you always been a firm believer that if something falls on the floor but you pick it up in less than eight seconds it is safe for consumption? Well, you might want to take a look at some of the experiments of our high school’s Science Fair before thinking that it is free of bacteria.
Do you think that your dog’s mouth is cleaner than yours? Then you may not be flossing enough. Have you always been a firm believer that if something falls on the floor but you pick it up in less than eight seconds it is safe for consumption? Well, you might want to take a look at some of the experiments of our high school’s Science Fair before thinking that it is free of bacteria.
The Science Fair is an annual event held at the high school in January. The participants are students in the Honors Physics classes and this year there were approximately sixty students who displayed their projects. Students start working on their projects in the fall, usually around early October. The project requires the student to do research on the idea they want to experiment, perform the actual experiment, and keep a log of their progress as well as any data they measure.
This year’s winner was Riley Windrow, followed by Riley Marszalek in second place and other outstanding participants were Nick Kanaczet, Madeline Brown and Maryssa Bergantino. All these students are going on to compete in the Rhode Island State Science Fair and to represent our High School.
In order to get to know the process behind the event a little better and all the effort that is put into these projects, we asked the winners to tell us about their projects and to answer a few questions:
Winning projects:
Maryssa Bergantino: My experiment was called “Which Antacid is the Most Effective?” I tested 4 different antacids; Mylanta, Gaviscon, CVS Health Brand, and Pepto Bismol, and I tested their effectiveness by adding them to cups of three different juices; orange juice, cranberry juice, and lime juice. I determined that Gaviscon was the most effective antacid as it neutralized the acid the most for all 3 juices. Also, the Pepto Bismol was not effective at all at neutralizing any of the acids of any of the juices as it did not react with them.
Riley Marszalek: My project was all about how social contact affects the brain and the fear response of humans. I used VR technology in order to conduct my experiment.
Madeline Brown: Dogs have evolved to lick to their wounds so there must be something in their saliva that has an anti-bacterial component. This study sought to test whether or not dog saliva could reduce the amount of bacteria by culturing five petri dishes with human saliva: four experimental cultures and one control culture. Surprisingly, the culture that grew the most was the culture of just dog saliva. One would think that the cultures with both human and dog saliva would grow more bacteria than a culture with just dog saliva but that was not the case. This experiment showed that dog saliva doesn’t reduce the amount of bacteria.
Interviewer: How did you come up with the idea for your experiment?
Maryssa Bergantino: I came up with this idea by trying to come up with an experiment that would be easy to get the materials but also be a strong project that represents something in reality. I also did some research online to see what I could use to represent a problem in the world that affects people and the best solution. It was an interesting experiment that was successful in yielding results and was appropriate to do my project on.
Riley Marszalek: I came up with my idea on my own after a few days of thinking. I knew I wanted to perform a social experiment, but it took some time to come up with a complete idea.
Madeline Brown: I have always loved animals and knew I wanted to do an experiment with them for the science fair but my dog was the only animal readily available to me.
Riley Windrow: For years I had always used melatonin as a sleeping supplement. And I wanted to test out how well it worked.
Interviewer: What was the hardest part of the project?
Maryssa Bergantino: The hardest part of the project was in the beginning when I was trying to use lemon juice as the acid in place of the orange juice. For whatever reason, the lemon juice was not being neutralized by any of the antacids so it caused me to have to use a lot of the antacids and the lemon juice on numerous unsuccessful trials. By using too much of the juices and the antacids, it did not accurately represent the reaction that would occur in the stomach as there was too much juice to be neutralized and it wasted a lot of the materials. To solve these problems, I replaced the lemon juice with orange juice, which gave me much more accurate results and used less of the antacids and the juices to ensure the accuracy of the results.
Riley Marszalek: For me, the hardest part of the project was coming up with an idea and starting the experiment. After that, everything began to flow.
Madeline Brown: I think the hardest part was having the patience to let the cultures sit for weeks. I thought the experiment would only take me two weeks but it ended up totaling six weeks to complete. It was also really hard to decide what experiment I wanted to do. I started thinking about what I wanted to do months in advance but ended up finally deciding the day before my idea was due.
Riley Windrow: The hardest part was definitely keeping track of the flies. They were all so small and moved around a lot.
Interviewer: What advice would you give students that wanted to participate next year?
Maryssa Bergantino: Not become overwhelmed by the workload and to not overthink their project. Science fair projects may seem like a lot of work, but if the project is planned out properly and is done in advance from any due dates, the project is much less stressful and easier to complete. Students should pick topics that they are interested in and use their interests to create a strong project. I believe that if the student is interested in what they are researching and experimenting, then their work will be stronger. Another piece of advice, it is not as hard as it looks and it can even be fun to run your own experiment.
Riley Marszalek: For students participating next year, I would advise them to pick a topic that truly interests you. This will make the project enjoyable and cause you not to dread the process.
Madeline Brown: I wouldn’t recommend waiting until the last minute to complete the project. I had to start mine early because the experimentation took six weeks so I was able to keep myself from stressing out over it. But, I know some people waited till the very last minute and they were really stressed out about it.
Riley Windrow: I would recommend starting your experiment as early as possible. Doing it last minute is not a good idea. Also, do your experiment on something you are interested in, it makes it a lot more fun.
Interviewer: Having seen all the experiments and which do you think was the most interesting one?
Maryssa Bergantino: After seeing all of the experiments, I think that the most interesting one was the project that compared the bacteria in a human mouth to the bacteria in a dog’s mouth. I think this is interesting because I know that many people have dogs as pets and it can be a common misconception that dog’s mouths are cleaner than the mouth of a human. I like how it represents a common misconception in today’s society and the results disproved it.
Riley Marszalek: Having seen all of the projects, I found many of them to be really interesting. From a password hacking program to a study of the bacteria in sports equipment, all of the projects were great.
Madeline Brown: One of the most interesting experiments for me was one about the bacteria on an apple from the school cafeteria versus one from home. The one from the school cafeteria had a lot more bacteria than the one from home which I think is pretty gross. I also found the experiment about the effect of the color of a drink on the taste very interesting.
Riley Windrow: I think all of the experiments were very interesting, it was cool to see all the different ideas and ways people went at their experiments.
The Science Fair provides the students at our school the chance to learn a lot about misconceptions of our daily lives. It is both an entertaining and educational event that deserves a lot of credit due to all the effort and thoughtfulness behind it. Besides, we would like to thank and to give a special mention to Mr. Golas and Mr. Lukowicz for organizing the event.
Needless to say, thank you to all the winners for your time and words and good luck in the Rhode Island State Science Fair! And remember:
Next time you drop a French fry… Just throw it away.
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