Science fair kids take center stage at regionals

Local science fair students had their chance to shine Saturday.

Wearing their Sunday best and armed with practiced explanations of projects backed up by months - or years, for many older teens - of research, 35 Cloquet students climbed onto a school bus at 6:45 a.m. and headed to Duluth for the regional science fair.

Once there, they joined students from 10 other schools from northern Minnesota, from Hinckley in the south and Babbit to the north.

Student projects ran the gamut.

Cloquet seventh-grader Grace Lavan examined if there is a correlation between a person having stomach issues and their likelihood of developing Parkinson's disease.

Lakeview Christian Academy's Caleb Franzen used an acrylic gas chamber to test the impact a high level of carbon dioxide had on the temperature of the atmosphere inside the chamber.

Cloquet junior Taylor Anderson tested four different groups of students to find out whether they could remember vocabulary words better when they sucked on a mint, a cherry Lifesaver or nothing when studying, and again when taking the test later. (FYI: Your best bet really is a peppermint.)

Saturday marked the 67th annual Northeast Minnesota Regional Science Fair, and the 13th year that Cloquet Middle School science teacher Cynthia Welsh has been running the annual event. She explained that she was busy teaching science when she called the College of St. Scholastica professor who had been running the science fair for years to ask a question, and he told her there wasn't going to be a fair that spring.

"I said, 'What? I have 150 kids with projects.'

He said, 'I'm done. You do it.' And that's how it happened."

Welsh said science fair is very democratic. It's open to any student willing to do the work. There is no activity fee to participate, and registration for the regional fair is $25 for middle school and $35 for high school students. Welsh applies for grant money to cover fees for kids who can't afford it and the school district pays the fees for any students who make it to state.

While her husband, Scott, has been her partner at the regional fair and more, for the past several years Welsh has been assisted by CHS alum Bill Bauer, a computer programming science fair whiz who now works in the IT department for the Cloquet School District.

Bauer, a 2012 grad, said he is amazed by some of the projects the kids are doing.

"It's interesting to look at what I did in high school and what kids are doing now - I feel like it's way beyond what I did," he said. "Yes, they get help from me, but it's also more common for kids to code on their own now.

"It's also nice to see a lot of the high school students helping middle school students with science fair, because (Dr. Welsh) and I don't always have time," he added.

Show time!

When they arrived in Duluth early Saturday morning, the student scientists were divided into two groups. Each group had 90 minutes to meet with the judges, who were almost as numerous as they were. Some judges focused on special prizes, while others decided who would be awarded first-, second- and third-place. Ten different highly qualified judges were there to select which six projects/student scientists (three to compete, three to observe) would go to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the "Olympics" of the high school science fair world.

The judges might ask for a 2-minute synopsis of a project, or a longer explanation. For some of the more involved projects, it's not uncommon to see a group of judges clustered around a young presenter or partner-presenters for 10-15 minutes at a time.

Cloquet juniors Marcy Ferreire and Lizzie Strickland took turns answering questions from several groups of judges Saturday

For their project, Ferriere and Strickland posed the question: What effect does land cover and use (human disturbances) have on wolf pack range and den location? Among their findings was that different wolf packs will choose den sites a similar distance from roads and residences (disturbances).

"How did you know the dens were empty when you looked at them?" one judge asked.

Ferreire revealed that they were accompanied to the den by a wildlife biologist from Fond du Lac, who used a stick and a flashlight to make sure the den was unoccupied.

Another judge asked about the effect of the oil pipelines, which the duo said actually seem to serve as transportation corridors for the wolves, as they are buried but kept mostly clear of vegetation. (Editor's note: Check out a video of Marcy Ferriere and Lizzie Strickland explaining their project on the Pine Knot News Facebook page.)

Not far away, Cloquet seniors Payten Schneberger and MacKenzie Brummer were dealing with their own group of judges, who were peppering them with questions about their study of air quality in Duluth.

The pair started looking into local air quality in Cloquet four years ago. Each year the two have continued with their air quality studies, but looked at different variables. This year they looked at Duluth and its consistently low ozone levels despite the presence of significant industry and a port.

"It just blows my mind that the air here is cleaner than any other place in Minnesota," said Schneberger after presentations were over, explaining that ozone levels in the Twin Cities were in the 60s while Duluth was a healthy 52, according to the numbers put out by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

In the end, by examining topography, weather, industry, harbor and lake breezes along with regional ozone levels, the duo determined that Lake Superior and its breezes deserve a lot of the credit for Duluth's clean air.

"The breezes coming in off the lake divert the pollutants away," Schneberger said, adding that when the breezes aren't blowing off the lake, Duluth's ozone levels look more like the rest of the state.

Other research topics included whether sports drinks such as Gatorade or Powerade improved reaction time, whether mealworms can digest plastic microbeads (which aren't currently filtered out of wastewater), the best methods of eradicating buckthorn and what effect the age and shoreline vegetation of a pond has on water chemistry and duckweed health.

CHS junior Abigail Smith used galvanized metal to create a replica of the HVAC system in the Cloquet Middle School art room, then used 2D- and 3D modeling software to lower the sound level, running experiments with different types of acoustical tape - which has thousands of tiny holes on the surface that allows the soundwaves to go through it rather than bouncing off.

About a month ago, she put theory to practice and actually implemented her findings in the art room. The decibel level was lowered by 36 percent, Smith said.

She said the most satisfying part of science fair is having a good outcome.

"You're guaranteed at least one time in science fair you'll finish and feel like you actually accomplished [whatever you set out to do]," Smith said. "For a long time, I was always feeling like there was more to do. Now it's more like, 'you tried your hardest, and what happens happens.'"

What happened for Smith this year was a trip to ISEF: she will join fellow Cloquet students Emma Wells, Brummer and Schneberger as presenters in Phoenix this year, along with observers Ferriere, Strickland and Claire Taubman, as Cloquet swept the top awards this year.

And in the future?

Any of this year's winners might find time in their busy lives to be future science fair judges, or assistants, or cheerleaders, like many who have gone before them.

Why? Because while science fair is about building resumes and helping kids reach their full potential, it's also about building family, Welsh said.

"It's really all about the kids," she said. "These just happen to be kids who like science."