Granville Science Fair a hit

You are currently viewing Granville Science Fair a hit

Joshua Bassett

A dry Christmas tree that emitted melodic sounds when hit was just one of the many exhibits on display last week at the 23rd annual Science, Art and Technology Fair in Granville.

Maxx Juckett, a 10th grader who exhibited the tree, was approached by attendees even before the event started and his tree was getting hits for the entire evening, with the sound from an attached speaker audible throughout the Granville High School gym.

Juckett said he saved the tree and put it in a dry kiln for a while to get the moisture out of it. It looked like a slightly larger version of the famous “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree, except its limbs were bare and it was secured in a tree stand instead of nailed to some pieces of wood.

“I saw something like this a few years ago at the Saratoga Springs Woodworking Show and I thought it was cool,” said Juckett.

He said the thinner branches had higher pitches and the lower you hit the tree the mellower the tone gets. People were asking him all night whether the tree was real or not, he said.

“It was definitely a hit,” said Juckett. “It was a surprise to me.”

Though his exhibit was very popular, many other exhibits were as well, including a Lego pyramid, “The Girl with the Candy Dispenser,” which was a collage of candy wrappers; a foam solar system complete with a description; a magnet display; a fingerprinting station; and a baking soda volcano.

Logan Heibler, a 5th grader, made a display of green and gray “Plastic Army Men,” complete with a painted battlefield and small wooden bases for both sides. He said he made it himself and “it’s about many events,” said Heibler adding it was largely based on the Civil War.

For her exhibit, Nicole Ahrnold, a 5th grader, decided to make handmade soap because she went online to find a project and thought it was cool.

“It takes a few minutes to make, but it needs a few hours to harden,” said Ahrnold, adding that it has to be put in the freezer.

She had three different soaps on display, two of which were green apple and vanilla.

“I know how vanilla smells and it smells really good, and I know how green apple smells and it smells really good too,” said Ahrnold, adding one of her favorite things about her project was that “after you make it, you can also use it.”

Katherine McCleneghen’s 5th grade Young Scholars Class had an exhibit that showed active and passive solar heating. Two of her students, Emily Powers and Adam Andrews, talked about the exhibit, saying that active solar heating is using solar panels and passive solar heating is just having the sun shine in openings and windows in houses.

Powers and Andrews both said that ancient civilizations like the Romans had their houses set up in a certain way so that they could get the most sunlight to come into the house and keep it warm.

They had two model houses, and a cut-up yellow Hula Hoop. Parts of the Hula Hoop were used to show how the sun is at a 73-angle to the earth in the summer and a 26-angle in the winter.

The event was packed and there were rows of tables lined up with students wearing their green “2015 PTA Science, Art and Technology Fair” shirts, with many parents flanking their children and their exhibit, along with students showing each other their exhibits.

Alicia Marcy, a teacher at Granville Elementary School and a member of the Granville Parent-Teacher Association, which helped organize the event, was very pleased with the turnout of 131 students participating in the fair and nine class projects.

“I thought it was very well attended,” said Marcy, adding that she thought many of the students were happy talking about their exhibit because they got to test their hypotheses.