It's Science Fair Time

The first couple of months of the year are science fair time and 2020 was no different than the last several years with my kids. Although my 7th grader did not participate in a science fair project this year (she was swamped with other activities, including soccer, jazz band, honor band, and Girl Scouts), my fourth grader participated in her second science fair. Last year she tested the strength of various types of tape on different surfaces. This year she wanted to see how much bacteria is left on your hands after various washing methods.

We picked up some agar filled petri dishes and she set about swabbing her hands and transferring bacteria to the dishes and then allowing it to grow for 96 hours. She swabbed dirty hands as a control, hands washed only with water, hands washed with bar soap, hands washed with liquid soap, and hands washed with hand sanitizer. The results were very interesting and petri dishes of growing bacteria are always cool.

My daughter's picture of a petri dish of bacteria from swabbing hands after cleaning them with bar soap and waiting 96 hours for growth.

My daughter's picture above shows the growth after 96 hours of bacteria swabbed from hands just cleaned with bar soap. Clearly bacteria still remains. My daughter did some background research on good versus bad bacteria and overall it was a fantastic learning experience for her.

Her efforts paid off as she won first place among fourth graders and was in the top 3 of projects of all elementary school grades, winning small telescope as a reward. She moves on to the regional science fair in a couple of weeks. Yes, I'm biased and super proud of her! :-)

Science fairs are a great way to expose children to the scientific process and have fun. I am so thankful our school chooses to participate and give kids an opportunity to fully immerse themselves in science. The night of the science fair showcase is combined with a much larger STEAM night with people filling the halls of the school to participate in STEM plus Art activities!