Three students from Greensboro Academy, Ewan McHugh, sixth-grade, Duncan Moore, seventh-grade, and Jack Auer, seventh-grade, competed at the North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair (NCSEF) last Saturday.
Before advancing to this fair, they competed in their school science fair with fellow sixth- and seventh-graders, and in the Region Five Charter School Science Fair, which included schools from 14 different counties. The competition included participants from public, private, charter, and homeschools. The students won against 421 other entries, advancing to the NCSEF.
“One of the biggest benefits I have seen in my students is that they become more confident after the science fair,” said April Harris, sixth-grade science teacher at Greensboro Charter Academy. “They have conquered a huge project that required months of hard work and they are so proud of what they have done.”
McHugh’s project titled “No Air, No Fair!” focused on physics and mathematics and tested different solutions to the problem of a hole forming in the space station. He tested different products to see which would hold a vacuum to save the most oxygen for astronauts to survive.
Moore’s project titled “Honey Are You Real?” focused on chemistry and investigated two major issues facing consumers today. First, the project sought to test the purity of honey in a time when food fraud is a growing reality. Second, the project utilized simple testing methods touted as accurate by the internet and social media.
Auer’s project titled “Strength in Cross Sectional Area” focused on engineering and he used spaghetti noodles to model the strength of bridges. He was testing to see how the size and quantity of the noodles affected how much weight it could hold.
McHugh placed third in the Jr. Physics and Math category, and Auer won two of the other awards given by individual organizations, including Outstanding Junior Project, awarded by the Office of Naval Research, and the U.S. Metric Association Award for the project that involves a significant amount of quantitative measurement and best uses the SI metric system.
“I cannot stress enough how important the Science Fair is for our students,” said Harris. “There is a huge pocket of our student population that are craving this type of learning.”