From testing the strength of cardboard to the science of discovering the best baseball bat, students hit it out of the park with their experiments at the Eastlake Science Fair.
On this episode of the Supercast, we take you inside the Science Fair to have some fun with students who take their problem-solving projects very seriously.
Audio Transcription
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. From testing the strength of cardboard to the science of discovering the best baseball bat, students hit it out of the park with their experiments at the East Lake science fair. On this episode of the Supercast, we take you inside the science fair to have some fun with fifth graders who take their problem solving projects very seriously.
Okay. We're here with JP in his Yankees uniform telling us about aluminum versus wood bats in his science project. Tell me, let's jump right into it.
JP:
So this is aluminum versus wood baseball bat. And the reason why I did this project is because I'm on a very competitive baseball team, so I'd like to know which bat hits the furthest. So then I can have the most chances of hitting a home run every time I get up to bat. Right? So my research was that the metal bat isn't allowed to be used in the MLB because they think that they'll hit it over too much. This is the metal bat, I mean the maple bat. And they think that it's a perfect bat for the MLB, like not too good that they'll hit over every time, but not too bad that they won't.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, so they actually want the maple bat so that they can't hit it quite as far?
JP:
Yes.
Anthony Godfrey:
They want it to be good enough, but not too good.
JP:
Yes, exactly. And this is the Ash bat. It takes a lot of strength to hit it over with the Ash bat.
Anthony Godfrey:
This is the Ash bat?
JP:
Yes. And they found that this is the one that the MLB used to use. Like Babe Ruth used to use an Ash bat and stuff. So, I found, so my hypothesis was that the metal bat went the furthest, the maple bat the second furthest, and the Ash was the third furthest. You can tell from my graph that my hypothesis was correct. That the metal bat hit the furthest, the maple bat the second furthest and the Ash bat, the third furthest.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now you obviously know your baseball history. Why do you think Babe Ruth used an Ashwood bat?
JP:
Well, because they didn't know about the maple bat back then. So I think that they used the maple bat, I mean the Ash bat, because they didn't know about the maple bat. So they're like, well, let's just get any wood that we see and let's just turn it into a bat. So then they can hit with.
Anthony Godfrey:
I see. Now, are you allowed to use Ash if you wanted to?
JP:
Yes. In the MLB, you are allowed to use Ash, but you're not allowed to use the metal.
Anthony Godfrey:
Are you allowed to use metal in your league?
JP:
Oh yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
And so you do use the metal?
JP:
I do use the metal.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yes. Okay. All right. Very good.
JP:
So in conclusion, I found that the metal bat is the most dense and that it hits the furthest. And because it's the furthest, the bat speed is very good. And it will hit the ball further.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now I'm looking at the graphic here, the map of where each ball landed on the baseball field. Did you hit all of these balls that you recorded?
JP:
Yes, I did. And we graphed them out and we had a radar gun to measure how fast the ball went.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, a radar gun?Where did you get a radar gun? Do you just have that regularly to measure the pitches and that sort of thing?
JP:
Yeah. So what we do sometimes when we have a baseball practice, we like to see how fast we can go. So me and my friends, we were just like being dumb, and we're just like measuring before practice starts, we're measuring how fast we can throw the ball to each other.
Anthony Godfrey:
That's awesome. I love that America's national pastime is alive and well in the youth of today. It looks like you had more fun than anyone else doing your experiment.
JP:
Oh I had so much fun! It was a blast!
Anthony Godfrey:
Well, this is an exciting project and I think it's gonna serve you well. Obviously you have great things ahead of you when it comes to baseball, but you're an outstanding scientist as well.
We're here with Maximus, looking at his science fair project. How strong is cardboard? Maximus, tell me how strong is cardboard?
Maximus:
Well it depends what kind of cardboard you're talking about. All right. So there’s chipboard and corrugated. Corrugated, it could hold 29 pounds per square inch.
Anthony Godfrey:
And how does it do that?
Maximus:
How does it do it? Well, it’s generally three pieces of paper. And then the middle piece of paper is flutes.
Anthony Godfrey:
The flutes. I had no idea that they were called flutes.
Maximus:
Yeah. And there are five different types of flutes: A flute, B flute, C flute, E flute, and F flute.
Anthony Godfrey:
Why is there no D flute?
Maximus:
I don't know.
Anthony Godfrey:
Maybe D flute used to exist, but there was a scandal. Do you think that could have happened?
Maximus:
I think there is a D flute, but they don't use it as much anymore.
Anthony Godfrey:
I see. So there was a scandal. All right. So tell me, what was it that got you interested in cardboard? Does your mom order a lot from Amazon Prime? And so you thought ‘I need to understand these boxes better?’
Maximus:
No, I wanted to start, well, I needed a strong material that could also be quite bendable.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Maximus:
So I chose cardboard and I've actually made a bridge out of it at home.
Anthony Godfrey:
You made a bridge at home?
Maximus:
Yeah. A mini bridge out of small pieces of cardboard.
Anthony Godfrey:
And where does this bridge lead to?
Maximus:
It's just sitting all around.
Anthony Godfrey:
You open up the wardrobe and there's a cardboard bridge to another world?
Maximus:
No.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay. So is your cardboard bridge still intact? Is it still looking good?
Maximus:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me about, you've got a piece of a cereal box here and then you've got the flutes. Oh, okay, I see. You're showing what makes the corrugated cardboard strong. Okay. Now look, the strength certificates you have these strength certificates mounted. I always see writing on the cardboard box, but I haven't been curious enough to check it out and see what it's all about. Tell me about those strength certificates.
Maximus:
So the strength certificate is this, and it's telling you how much size limit it could get to. It tells you how long it is, big it is, and it tells you how much weight it could hold - 65 pounds.
Anthony Godfrey:
What is the conclusion then?
Maximus:
The conclusion is that I'm glad that I did it because it was really fun, but also that I know I can definitely build with cardboard. And the conclusion, well, more of the conclusion is that strength of cardboard is really cool and really strong.
Anthony Godfrey:
So do you like to work with cardboard? You made a bridge.
Maximus:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
What's your next project?
Maximus:
My next project, it's probably gonna be like a Lego sized house.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, wow. So where do you get your cardboard?
Maximus:
Amazon.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, you buy it?
Maximus:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Wow. So you're serious about your cardboard. As if I didn't know before, now I really know. So do you think that your study of cardboard has made you think about a job maybe in engineering? I mean, you're already building bridges.
Maximus:
Yeah. Whenever I was like five years old, I wanted to be an engineer.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Well, I think you are well on your way, Maximus. It's great talking to you.
Maximus:
It's great talking to you too.
Anthony Godfrey:
Good job.
Stay with us. When we come back, we'll talk with some of the teachers who made the science fair possible.
Break:
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Anthony Godfrey:
We're here at East Lake Elementary at the fifth grade science fair. And I'm with Jess, taking a look at her ‘What is the best type of fabric for artists to wear?’ science project. So tell me about this.
Jess:
So I chose this because I love painting and drawing. And usually when I draw my clothes get dirty. So I wanted to see what's the best fabric for artists to wear. So, when I did my research, I learned about four types of fabrics; cotton, polyester, polyurethane, and wool. Cotton and polyester are similar. They’re both breathable, durable, and can be stain resistant. Polyurethane is stain resistant, durable and waterproof, but not that breathable. So it's usually mixed with materials like cotton or polyester. The fourth one I learned about was wool. Wool is usually hard to find, expensive and it usually needs to be dry cleaned, and artists need something that's easy to find and easy to wash. So I didn't put that there.
Anthony Godfrey:
This is a very practical approach for an artist. Do you think you're more artist or more scientist?
Jess:
Kind of a mix of both.
Anthony Godfrey:
A mix of both. Okay. Well, that's a really good mix because you don't always find that combination. How many hours do you think you spent on this project?
Jess:
A month.
Anthony Godfrey:
A month? Wow.
Jess:
Yeah. When we first started it, we went to Walmart, but I actually had some struggle finding it. So my mom went to another store and she found these fabrics, so then we actually started doing it. My research was pretty easy, typing it up and writing it down. So I think the part that I moved the fastest on was doing the project itself and the typing.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Well, this is really impressive. And so do you have an outfit picked out now that you can wear when you're doing art?
Jess:
Yes.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. And what color is it?
Jess:
It would probably be white because according to my research, it is best for us to wear white fabric because bleach is white. So if they had to like use bleach on it, it wouldn't really show anything.
Anthony Godfrey:
You have really thought things through. I wish I had more time. I have some other problems for you to solve. Oh yeah. But I better keep going. It's been a delight talking with you.
Jess:
Thank you.
Anthony Godfrey:
And you have big things in your future that's for sure.
Jess:
Thank you.
Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks Jess.
Jess:
You're welcome.
Anthony Godfrey:
All right, Carter, it looks like you studied the greenhouse effect for your science project. Tell me about it.
Carter:
So for the greenhouse effect, first I needed to learn what the greenhouse effect is. And the greenhouse effect is the transfer of heat between the sun and the earth. So the sun beams down heat and the earth absorbs it. And then at night it releases some of the heat into the atmosphere, which gets caught by the carbon dioxide, which creates heat. And without this greenhouse effect, we wouldn't survive.
Anthony Godfrey:
So is there something that you learned in studying the greenhouse effect that surprised you?
Carter:
So I was trying different surface materials to see if that affected it. And it seemed like sand got very affected because this line right here is the cover box, which represents the greenhouse effect. This one right here represents the uncovered box, which is the normal air. And it got hotter than the greenhouse one. So I was surprised by that because I thought it would just always stay under.
Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me about the box. What did you set up and what was involved in your experiment?
Carter:
So three materials, rock, soil, and sand.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. And I can see pictures of the box here. So what did you do with it there?
Carter:
So we filled it up with about one inch of sand or soil or rocks. And then we put a thermometer in each box and then we covered one box with plastic wrap and faced them towards the sun. So once we did that, every 15 minutes for an hour we went out to check if there was a temperature difference between the boxes.
Anthony Godfrey:
And what did you find?
Carter:
That the covered box was almost always hotter than the uncovered box, which represented the normal air.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, so trapping things in and allowing the heat in, but not allowing it to escape. You were able to replicate that. Wow. Well, this is very impressive. This is a complex topic that everyone's heard of, but not a lot of us understand. So you understand it at a deep level. That's very impressive.
Carter:
Thanks.
Anthony Godfrey:
Looks great.
We're here with Campbell. Campbell, describe to me what is your science project today?
Campbell:
My science project was ‘Do store bought UV lights kill bacteria?’, which is this one right here.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh yeah. I've seen those products. So those are the ones that are designed to kill bacteria, right?
Campbell:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
And you're gonna tell me if they work or not.
Campbell:
Yeah. So how I did it is I got a bunch of these, like dish things.
Anthony Godfrey:
And wait, okay. Toilet handle, computer keyboard, light switch, belt and iPhone. Wow. You picked the germ centers of my world. All right. Let's find out.
Campbell:
So I did two of each of their surfaces, A and B. A is with UV, I mean without UV light and B is with UV light. So how I would do it is I would first make the agar mix with the water and then I would put it in the dish all five times. And then I would grab the swab, like a COVID swab. Because they are completely sterilized. Don't have any bacteria on it. So you can know if that, make sure that's the bacteria. So I would do it, something like this or any of those surfaces. And then I'd put it on that, on that one. And then I would use the UV light for a minute and then I would do it and see if it worked. And one is bacteria and zero is no bacteria, which means that I saw bacteria on all of them, which means that it didn't work.
Anthony Godfrey:
Looking at the graphic. I can see that everything is exactly the same. Whether you used the UV light or not.
Campbell:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
It looks like it had zero impact. Well, you know, I guess the only impact it would have is to make you feel better, even though you shouldn't feel better because not one bit of bacteria was killed.
Campbell:
So my hypothesis was it wouldn't work because hospitals buy them for like, 60 to 130 grand. So I was like, why would these ones work if hospitals have to buy them for that much?
Anthony Godfrey:
Boy, I'm super impressed at the way you had this set up, it looks straight. And I actually thought about buying one of those before. So now you just saved me some money. Thanks a lot Campbell.
We're here with the fifth grade team at East Lake Elementary. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the science fair.
Michelle Vernieuw:
I am Michelle Vernieuw and the best part about the science fair for me is being able to see the kids not only use the scientific method, but use their creativity and being able to explore ideas that they have and explore things that are interesting to them.
Anthony Godfrey:
When I talked with those students, there were some that were really personal to them. I'm an artist. I want to study what material I ought to wear. I'm a baseball player. So they're all connected to their projects in one way or another.
Michelle Vernieuw:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And they get to really explore those interests in an academic way that they may not have been able to think through before, but through the scientific method, they now have steps to go. This is how I can do this. This is how I can create, this is how I can find solutions.
Anthony Godfrey:
They're better thinkers.
Sammy Sutherland:
I'm Sammy Sutherland, 5th grade DLI. I second what Michelle said, I really liked that they picked things that they were interested in. Like, I really liked the one where she really liked dance and she picked how she could be a better dancer by seeing what things help her. I know that they all had a really good time doing it. I was just really proud of them for all the hard work that they put in it because they didn't have to do it. And they did. So they did really well.
Thomas Boulay:
I'm Thomas Boulay, the DLI Chinese teacher. I thought it was really great to see all of the fun projects that the kids did. Even though we made it optional in our class because we have less time with the DLI schedule, the kids who did it still had great projects and it seems like they really enjoyed making them.
Jennifer Burr:
My name's Jennifer Burr and I loved this whole process. For the past month students have been coming to me telling me about their project and sharing their enthusiasm. And it was fun to also have students who their hypothesis and then their hypothesis didn't turn out the way they thought. And then they had to think through why that didn't work or if they were going to retest it, what they would do different. But the great part is their enthusiasm and their ownership for the project. And really like Mrs. Vernieuw said, understanding the scientific process, because I think this is really the first time that they've walked through it themselves or with the support of their parents. And then also I love the science projects where they included their whole family, that the family were test subjects and really helped support them. It’s so awesome that so many people came today to cheer their great efforts. Thank you Superintendent for coming. It's pretty awesome. Thank you.
Anthony Godfrey:
My pleasure to come. And it's interesting that it's like you said, family was obviously involved in all of this. It's the type of project and the type of learning that connects parents and kids and siblings and perhaps even pets as test subjects.
Jennifer Burr:
Yeah. I wanted to add that one of the fascinating parts about this whole process is seeing kids get excited about science. And you know, in today's world science sometimes gets, you know, discouraging because it's hard. Math is hard. Science is hard, the STEM. And to see these kids get excited about science and say, ‘I can have a part in science’ and then also to see you know, ‘I'm gonna represent the female’. You know, also just being able to say that these girls can say, ‘I can have a place in science.’ It's very exciting to me as well.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh absolutely. And let me ask you this, when you started the science fair projects and started to talk about topics, did you see a light bulb go on or a firelight in some kids that maybe otherwise had kind of not felt that level of enthusiasm for school lately?
Sammy Sutherland
Oh, definitely because it's their own project. It's what is interesting to them and they could really take ownership in what they wanted to pursue.
Anthony Godfrey:
That you took this on, I'm proud of the work you and the kids have done here and I'm excited to see it in the future. Keep inviting me, please.
Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see out there.