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Daniel Said (left) explains his project to judge Wayne Seltzer. Students in grades 6-12 from Boulder Valley and surrounding areas shared what they learned Tuesday at the Corden Pharma Regional Science Fair held at Boulder’s Pratt Middle School, 6096 Baseline Road. (Cliff Grasmick/Staff Photographer)
Fairview High School senior Zach Nagle’s passion for environmental justice and skepticism about companies’ self-reported data led him to test for contaminants and radioactivity near the Suncor refinery in Commerce City.
He tested multiple areas near the plant, sometimes accessed by climbing over rocks and through brush, as well as two other sites used as controls. He also spent “dozens of hours” writing a computer program to more accurately assess the color of the test strips and eliminate the possibility of bias.
“I learned a lot,” he said. “I appreciated the independence of designing a project. This is something I’m really passionate about.”
His research was one of 127 projects presented at the annual Corden Pharma Colorado Regional Science Fair held Tuesday at Pratt Middle School, 6096 Baseline Road in Boulder. Corden Pharma is sponsoring the science fair in partnership with the Boulder Valley School District.
Middle school and high school students presented their unique independent projects to a team of approximately 85 judges, including local scientists and researchers. Many judges return each year.
Rich Smith started reviewing 35 years ago as a City of Boulder employee and continued doing so after his retirement. While solid science is important to a successful project, enthusiasm is what sets it apart, he said.
“The enthusiasm and interest in what you’re working on, that’s what makes it so much fun,” he said. “I really enjoy talking to the kids and seeing their enthusiasm for science.”
The top performers in the science fair will be invited to an awards ceremony on Monday at 5:30 p.m. at Pratt Middle School. Thirty-seven projects will advance to the Colorado Engineering and Science Fair in Fort Collins in April, and three projects will be selected for the International Science and Technology Fair in California in May.
Tuesday’s science fair will explore whether ants can speak different languages, the most efficient design for an F1 race car, the amount of bacteria on chalk, building a pet feeder using AI, and identifying text written by ChatGPT. A project was carried out by junior high school students.
Olive Spohn and Maya Lokulenko, eighth-graders at Flagstaff Academy in Longmont, both wear glasses, but they realize that glasses don’t correct their peripheral vision, and their prescription glasses cause peripheral vertigo. I decided to investigate the impact.
They built a large box out of PVC pipe, covered it with a checkered cloth, and shook the cloth while a person stood inside and simulated vertigo. They found that people who wear glasses or contacts are more likely to experience tremors and other symptoms of vertigo.
“We had to combine a lot of things that we were interested in,” Maya said. “It was an amazing and very unique project. I like science because you can always discover something. There’s no end. You can always learn something new.”
Quinlan Childs, an eighth-grader at Boulders Summit Middle School and an engineering enthusiast, built a wind tunnel to test wooden wing models, using flat wood as a control, to determine the effectiveness of different airplane wings. I tested it. He found that a wing with a curved top and a flat bottom was the best design.
“It worked out well,” he said.
When Hayes Mullin, an 8th grade student at Boulder Country Day School, heard that water usage could be a big issue, she came up with a project about the best sprinklers. She used a soda bottle, a hose, and an ice cube tray to measure how well four different types of sprinklers could spread her 1 inch of water across an area. The winner was Mr. Style.
“I love science,” she said. “It’s a very interesting subject. The Science Fair takes me out of my comfort zone. It makes me better at public speaking and presentations.”
On the high school side, many students competing in the regional fair are enrolled in or have attended Boulder Valley’s science research seminar class. Students from Centaur High School’s engineering program in Lafayette also participated in the project, as did several students from St. He’s Innovation Center in Blaine Valley.
Senior Taryn McDiarmid and junior Anya Wieder brought in a project they are working on in the Innovation Center to identify the northern red-backed warbler, which was previously reintroduced to the St. Vrain River. They want to test for DNA in the water to see if the fish are still at the release site, and are less invasive than other methods such as shocking the water and letting the stunned fish float to the top. is said to be low.
“Anything else is traumatic for the fish,” says Anya, who attends Longmont High School. “This method won’t harm the fish.”
Initial testing using DNA methods did not yield positive results, but we plan to work with our industry partners to determine what went wrong and try again.
“This research is really important,” Taryn said.
After Monarch High School seniors Jake Angell and Jack Killian read about the storm that damaged a SpaceX satellite, they wanted to know if there was a more accurate way to predict geomagnetic storms. Ta. They said they had to try several programs before finding one that could create predictive graphs, but otherwise the project design worked well.
Science fair projects are fun, Killian added, because “it’s like choosing your own destiny.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing if we can provide something meaningful for researchers,” he said.
Tennis player Stella Laird, a senior at Fairview High School, is building an app that uses machine learning to analyze tennis swings. Although she has filmed her own swings a few hundred times, she said she should have filmed at least 1,000 swings and included others as well. Still, she’s happy with her progress, and she plans to continue working toward developing the app, she said.
“It’s nice to have something on the court that I can check on to see how I’m doing,” she said. “I would use my app. That would be really cool.”
Centaurus engineering seniors Jordan Schatz and Luc Lesperance designed an energy-efficient windshield cover for all seasons. One side melts ice and the other side uses heat emitting paint to keep your car cool. They have been able to create pigments for paint, but the biggest challenge is, and is still being figured out. It’s the base of the paint.
They said that despite the challenges of developing new products using new technology, they are optimistic that solutions will be found as they continue working on the project.
“It was a fun way to utilize the school’s engineering resources to investigate real-world problems,” Jordan said.
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