Students try some scientific methods

MONTROSE — Which works better, organic or non-organic hair dye? Does eye color affect peripheral vision? Which is more acidic, Sprite or orange juice?

These are some of the questions students at Holy Redeemer School posed, and tried to answer, in this year’s school science fair.

Every student in grades five through eight participated, picking a topic, developing a hypothesis and independently conducting an experiment to answer their question. On Wednesday, six judges who did not work at the school — such as Jet Propulsion Laboratory employees and a Homeland Security employee — reviewed students’ work, asking questions about how the students developed their procedures and followed the scientific method.

To get students engaged in the activity, they are given free rein in picking their science projects, said Cathi Garcia, who teaches science at the kindergarten through eighth-grade Catholic school.

Garcia’s instructions to the students are to “find an avenue of science you like,” she said.

“I encourage them to do fun, crazy projects,” she said.

Brianna Medina, 12, and Kaylan Rothrock, 13, tested organic against non-organic hair dyes on strips of hair they got from a hairdresser to see which worked better. They also researched the price and safety of organic versus non-organic hair color.

They dyed three strips of hair with three organic colors and dyed three strips of hair with non-organic colors. Then they washed each strip every other day for eight days to mimic how real hair would be treated.

“We wanted to see which one would fade,” Brianna said.

After a week of washing the hair and making observations, the girls found that the color of the organic red dye was already disappearing.

The girls concluded that while the organic dyes smelled better and were safer, the non-organic dyes lasted longer.

Having to explain their project to judges helped the students make sure they understood their experiment well, the girls said.

“I feel I know my project really well, and I feel confident speaking about it,” Brianna said.

Lauren Hancock, 14, tested the acidity of several liquids by using the juice from a red cabbage, an experiment she saw modeled online. When the red cabbage juice is added to a liquid, it turns a shade of pink, depending on the acidity level of that substance, Lauren explained. The more pink the liquid becomes, the more acidic that substance is, she said.

Lauren hypothesized that the lemonade was the most acidic, because she knew lemons were acidic. Orange juice would be the next-most acidic, she guessed, followed by Sprite and then apple juice.

Lauren demonstrated the experiment for Nathaniel Livesey, a Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist who was judging the science projects.

She spooned several tablespoons of the cabbage juice into separate glasses of juices and soda, and each glass turned a slightly different hue of pink. Because the Sprite looked the most pink, she concluded that it was in fact the most acidic.

But Livesey pointed out that the original color of the liquids might be affecting the end results.

“You’ve got to be slightly careful,” Livesey said.

He discussed with Lauren how she could try to control for the color of the original liquid.

Lauren said the science fair projects were fun, but it was a bit stressful explaining the projects in front of judges.

“I learned that mostly it’s not really about the project you do, it’s about how you use the scientific method,” Lauren said.

Having the students work independently on the science project and present their work to non-school employee judges challenges students to communicate effectively and understand what they’ve produced, Garcia said.

“You will know how they did the project by listening to them,” Garcia said.