By Jean McDermott

I.J. Holton Principal

Science Fair season is upon us and I.J. Holton Intermediate School will be the host site for the grades third- through sixth-competitive science fair, which we are expanding and renaming STEAM Expo (STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics). Our student scientists, engineers and performers will make their work public on Friday, March 6. The community is invited to join us between 1 to 2:30 p.m. for public display of science projects, engineering challenges, artistic performances and demonstrations.

All fifth- and sixth-grade students are designing a project or experiment that uses the scientific method which is part of their science class coursework. Students who choose to do so will enter their project into the competitive science fair and have the opportunity to advance to district, state and national levels of competition. All fifth- and sixth-grade students will publicly present their completed projects on March 6, but only those in the competitive fair will be judged for qualification for the advanced level fairs. Third- and fourth-grade students also have the opportunity to participate in the competitive science fair and will be joining I.J. Holton students on March 6 for the judging of their projects.

The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments. The steps of the scientific method are observation, research, hypothesis, experiment materials and methods, data, conclusions, and application. While scientists study how nature works, engineers create new things such as products, websites, environments and experiences. An added component to the STEAM Expo for fifth- and sixth-grade students is the Engineering Challenge. Students will have the opportunity to select a challenge as the base of their project. Students will still be responsible for creating a project to present, but will compete during the expo with their challenge. Projects developed for the challenge will incorporate the Engineering Design process: ask, imagine, plan, create and improve.

Students participating in the engineering challenges are designing and testing their prototypes prior to event day. They have four challenges to select from: Straw Rocket Challenge: the objective of the Straw Rocket Challenge is to design, build, and test a straw rocket of student design that will strike a target at any given distance between 3 and 12 meters; Force Car Challenge: the objective of the Force Car Challenge is to design and build a vehicle to travel the longest distance powered solely by a non-metallic, elastic solid; Fettuccini Physics: Truss Bridge Challenge: the objective of this event is to design and build the lightest bridge capable of supporting a given load using uncooked fettuccini spaghetti noodles; Mystery Powder: students will observe and study the chemical behaviors of a mixture that is presented in competition. Using each of five tests, the student must figure out the contents that make up the mixture based on the data collected prior to competition.

Students at I.J. Holton also have many opportunities to develop their musical and visual arts talents as well as participating in clubs ranging from robotics to knitting. The STEAM Expo will be a venue for students to share these talents with the public through performances and demonstrations on STEAM Expo Day.

I hope you can join us on March 6 and experience the innovation of our budding scientists, engineers and performers.