This is something of a departure from the past, said Schools Superintendent Constantino Scerbo, who said several of the schools wanted to put on a local display for the public.
Award-winning projects from Clarendon School and Huber Street School were brought to the library, where students received their awards on April 14 in the Elementary Science Fair - and they remain on display along with some of the exhibits that won at the Hudson County Science Fair earlier this year.
Won with a windmill
Eddie Wolf, of Huber Street School, managed to win three awards at the Hudson County Science Fair this year including the 5th Grade Gold Medal, Discovery Young Scientist Award and the Schulman Memorial Award for his project on the Savonius wind turbine.
This could qualify him for further competition in Washington D.C. in October.
The Savonius turbine is a kind of windmill that produces electrical and mechanical power for use as an additional power source. Wind turbines use moving magnets to create a current of electricity in coils of wire, and service everything from charging small batteries to supplying power for thousands of homes.
Wolf said he worked with his father on the project, gathering information from the Internet. Several family members are electricians, but he said he wanted to do something out of the ordinary in the electrical field.
"I learned that moving air can produce electricity," he said, going over the detail of how he and his father constructed their turbine, using a plastic scoop in order to catch the air. In his display, he supplied the air by using a hair dryer.
Although Wolf said he is very interested in science, he will likely seek a career as a lawyer.
Becoming his own guinea pig
Mitchell Craven, of Huber Street School, whose work was not at the library, but who won the Minnie and Sam Narushinsky Memorial Award at the Hudson County Science Fair, performed his science project on himself. He wanted to find out if some children may have been misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) when they are actually allergic to various foods, food colorings and additives.
He tested this theory by eating foods he had tested positive for on an allergy skin test. By the process of elimination, he recorded the effects of yellow cheese, yogurt and chocolate over a month. He learned from this that some foods can cause children to show symptoms of ADD, such as distractibility, loss of concentration, excessive movement of hands and feet. When the foods were removed, he said, the symptoms were also gone. Thus he determined that diet might be the source of some of the problems, and if so, then the use of prescription drug treatment for ADD can also be avoided.
Chocolate, he said, caused headaches. Yogurt caused even more severe headaches, while cheese caused him the worst headache of all.
In these tests, he listed his reactions and what might be the cause.
This was Mitchell's second award-winning year. Last year, he won a gold metal for his comparison of the structure of the World Trade Center towers vs. the Empire State Building and how an airplane strike on the Empire State Building would not have caused it to fall.
Science teacher Kerri Clifton took over the science fair in Huber Street School this year. She is a former student of Principal Pat Cocucci at the High School. She said county competition interfered a little with this year's fair because projects that she wanted to be submitted for county competition had to be finished in January, whereas for the local fair they didn't need to be ready until March. This was part of the reason that the schools decided to display at the library so that local people could get to see some of those projects submitted to the county.
Other projects
Other project displayed at the library included one by Christine Rodriguez, of Huber Street School, who sought to show how various materials conducted or did not conduct electricity. She said that silver tended to conduct best, whereas wood and plastic did not at all. Plain water did not conduct electricity as well as salt water.
"This is because of the sodium content," she explained.
Kelsey Snedeker and Victoria Vanoni of Huber Street School wondered about the Universal Product Code bar they saw on various products in the stores, and thought they would look into what they were and what benefit they had for marketing.
"We didn't know what they were when we started," Kelsey said.
"So we went out and found out," said Victoria. "We did our study on six-digit and twelve-digit codes."
They said they learned that the label has many benefits to business, such as more reliable and quicker data entry that has contributed to the lowering of prices for some products.
Julian Chaves and Joseph Schoendorf, from Huber Street, who were honored on April 14, decided to build a robot and were inspired by "Robot Wars," a high tech version of a demolition derby shown weekly on TV.
"We wanted to build it out of recycled materials," Julian said. "So we found a lot of old toys in my basement."
"Julian asked me to bring some over from my house," Joseph added.
Using everything from a plastic airplane to the top of an old UFO toy, they built robot whose head spun as it moved back and forth on a set of wheels.
Emily German of Clarendon School did her project on static electricity. She selected several materials that included plastic, paper, sand paper and cardboard, then wrapped a block of wood in plastic, another in aluminum foil and left the third plain to see which would accumulate the most friction. The plastic-covered block produced the most friction, the aluminum the least.
Julia Eisler of Clarendon School did her project on chromatography, which studied the chemical makeup of various materials. Using water and alcohol as well as a variety of litmus paper, she tested the chemical contents of three types of candy, markers and pens.
The rest of the winners
The other projects awarded at the library included: Howard Allen for "Plant mazes", Brian Beckmeyer for "How do heart rates differ among age groups," Nicole Bodei and Danielle Scisala for "Optical illusions," Julian Bovina and Hannah Nicols for "Can you teach an old dog new tricks," Matthew Briones for "Electro magnet," Dylan Caruso for "Magnetic Strengths," Cynthia Costello for "Water filtration," Richard Damato for "How to clear up oil spills," Alexander Farinola for "How to judge distance/depth," Michele Gentile & Margaret Potoczniak for "Bernculli's Principle," Gregory Griffith for "Snowflakes," Aya Hezzini for "The safety of seatbelts," Kevin & Andrea Innis for "How does sound travel," Jaclyn Jerkovich for "Paper recycling," Sara Kim & Laura Soto-Bayomi for "Do different temperatures of liquids affect how fast sugar dissolves," Natalie Londono for "The world of butterflies," Michael Losurdo for "The melting of ice cubes," Gerard Marra for "Sound perception," Michelle Meli for "Electrical distribution systems," Breanna Murphy for "The rotten truth," Danielle Ortiz and Cristina Fuentes for "Peanut power," Nina and Niko Petruzzella for "Problems with your heart," Francis Ramirez for "What types of foods are corrosives," Sachel Sengupta for "How does a hovercraft work," Anmol Tank for "Moon phases," Ryan Vasquez for "Conduction of electricity," and Jesse Williams for "Can cells change."
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