Science Fair

A few weeks ago we found out that the 5th Grade students at Daniel's (10) school would be required to do a project for the upcoming Science Fair. After much consideration, he decided to do an experiment that his big sister did four years ago. I'm sure the fact that she had success with it made it all the more appealing. Unfortunately for Daniel, we did not have her project any more, so he had to start from scratch. Of course, if we did, I would have made him choose something else. 8^)

For the last few weeks Daniel has been working diligently on his Science Project. It was called "I See Vitamin C!". He made a Vitamin C indicator solution, and used it to determine which kind of juice had the most Vitamin C. His samples included orange, grapefruit, apple and white grape juices. He guessed that grapefruit juice would be the winner. Surely a juice with such a sour/bitter taste had to have a high Vitamin C content. After completing his experiment, he discovered he was wrong. Not only was grapefruit juice not the winner, but orange juice was even worse! So much for drinking OJ for extra Vitamin C when we feel a cold coming on. In the end, it was white grape, closely followed by apple juice, that had the most Vitamin C. Who knew?!

Daniel turned his project into school on Wednesday, and received rave reviews from his classmates. Of course, they weren't the ones that would be doing the judging. The teachers were very concerned about this being an impartial, non-biased contest. The students were not allowed to put their names or any photos that showed more than their hands on their projects. As a final step, the teachers arranged for the students from the high school Science Club to do the judging. After meeting a few of them, we were all convinced that they were more than qualified to judge the Science Fair.

So, last night was the big event. There were almost 100 projects turned in by the 5th graders, so there was lots of competition. There were quite a few projects that were very interesting and well executed. After all the students and their families wandered around looking at them, it was time to hear the results. Daniel was hopeful, but far from certain that he would win. We heard the Honorable Mention awards, and the award for Best Presentation and Best Use of the Scientific Method. Finally, they announced the top 3. Daniel was thrilled to learn that his project took 3rd place!!!


After a few photo ops, we decided that a celebration was definitely in order. So, off to Coldstone we went.

Yum!!!

Great Job Daniel!!!!