Bessemer Elementary Science Fair features student talent

A total of 100 curious young minds participated in a competitive science fair on Wednesday, December 5.

Each year, Bessemer Elementary School teachers encourage their innovative students to participate in the school’s annual scientific challenge. Third, fourth and fifth grade students were given two months to prepare for the event. Once the students’ projects are completed, community judges use a rubric to analyze each child’s experiment and the community is allowed to view the presentations the following day.

The projects were required to focus on a scientific issue, formulate a hypothesis on the subject, write a procedure and conduct an experiment to prove or disprove the hypothesis and analyze the results. Teachers supplied the students with resources to help research topic ideas and implement their experiment.

The science projects were carried out individually or by pairs of students and included the use of various materials such as water, soil, wax, Styrofoam cups, iodized salt, eggs and gum.

Thomas Bagley, the second place winner for fifth grade conducted an experiment using various brands of bubble gum to determine which one made the largest bubbles. Bagley measured the width of each bubble formed and wrote about the product producing the largest bubble.

Another budding scientist, Greg Murphy, used candles in his project. The first place winner hypothesized that the color of a candle’s wax would inhibit its ability to burn for long period of times. The experiment determined that white candles burned longer than any other color. There were a total of four volunteer judges, two of whom possessed an extensive background in the basic sciences. The rubric scores were tallied to determine first, second and third place winners for each grade level.

Each winner was ecstatic about his or her accomplishments and willing to share their experimental procedures with visitors from the community.
Bagley believes it is important for students, like himself, to participate in science projects. He said once you learn how to implement the work correctly, you can teach the procedure to your peers and help them learn new information.

Bessemer Elementary School 1st place winners:

3rd grade: Trey Whitfield
4th grade: Javaris Johnson
5th grade: Greg Murphy
2nd place winners:
3rd grade: Zaria Russell
4th grade: Endiyah Curry (not pictured), Kailyn Handy, Hyland
Hebel and Jayden Smith
5th grade: Thomas Bagley
3rd place winners:
3rd grade: Trista Percell
4th grade: Adoriyan Murphy
5th grade: Ayanna Muhuz