Mountain Avenue Elementary School recently traveled back through time to explore the Age of the Dinosaurs for its science fair theme, “Science is Dino-mite!”

Students looked over 30 different large fossils, plus interesting rocks, gems and minerals, brought to the school by the traveling-museum company “Dinosaurs Rock” and local geologist and paleontologist, Dr. Donald Prothero from Cal Poly Pomona.

Charly Shelton also displayed whale, porpoise and shell fossils that he recently unearthed from Tujunga canyon.

Science fair co-chairs Jackie Bodnar and PTA President Jennifer Penez helped plan the event. Bodnar has collected fossils for over 30 years and displayed fish, fern, ammonite and trilobite fossils – the latter are over 500 million years old! In addition to being dazzled by fossil and mineral displays, the students enjoyed a “dinosaur footprint” scavenger hunt to identify life-sized footprints from over eight different species of dinosaurs. The Tyrannosaurus rex footprint was so gigantic that some of the younger students could fit inside it.

The hunt was organized by Meena Chokkalinga. Her son, Mahesh Arunachalam, and his friend Mihir Manchikatla, were second place winners at the 2018 Los Angeles County Science & Engineering Fair (LACSEF) Environmental Management Junior Division. Their project, “Seal that Mask! An Effective Solution to Improve Dust Masks,” uses a sponge on existing masks to reduce the inhalation of harmful air pollutants and particulates. Their project was elected for special awards from the Office of Naval Research and Ricoh America’s Corp., and they moved on to compete at the California State Science Fair (CSSF) and Broadcom Masters.

Nearly 200 students participated in Mountain Avenue Elementary School’s science fair with projects exploring various topics such as narwhals, mollusks, honeybees, slime, tornadoes and underwater volcanoes. Students also built engineering projects or models such as an “automated parking robot” by Willie Rhodes and Jung-Jae Yoon, and a wooden music box that played “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” by Suzanna Bodnar.

Forty sixth grade students also competed in the engineering challenge, “The Great Paper Roller Coaster Challenge,” to see which paper roller coaster design could keep a marble continuously rolling for the longest time.

Skyler Liggett, a fifth-grader who has his ham radio operator license, demonstrated his ham radio live and students were able to talk to other ham radio operators in far-flung states across the country. He was assisted by his dad Elliott Liggett, a systems engineer for NASA/JPL. Other JPL parents, Juno Mission Manager Matt Johnson and Principle Systems Engineer Daniel Limonadi, gave presentations about their work exploring Jupiter with the Juno spacecraft and exploring Mars, including images in 3-D, with the Mars Rover. Mission Control students Vitaly Vakhteev, Nate Bertram, Marc Hyeler, Timothy Hwang, Bilal Akmi, and Maui Lawson, showed their “space missions” as part of the Kerbal Space Program club, which has over 40 students and is coordinated by teacher Jennifer Garrubba.

Another fun entry was the Electricity and Magnetism room that featured static wand tinsel-floating sticks, magnet mayhem, a “plasma globe” and a Van de Graaf generator that made guests’ hair stand on end through the repulsion force of like charges.

Two different robots could also be found moving around the school courtyard. Crescenta Valley High School Falkon Robotics Team FRC 589 (coordinators Lyn Repath-Martos and Greg Neat) brought their “Galileo” robot that could stack foam blocks, and Clark Magnet Robotics Team FRC 696 (coordinator David Black) entertained the audience with the school’s interactive robot.

Parent volunteer and engineer James Bodnar exploded the “Diet Coke/Mentos Soda Geyser” nearly 30 feet high, an annual Mountain Avenue Elementary science fair tradition.

Thanks was extended to the community volunteers and supporters who made the science fair possible and fun, including 20 student volunteers from the CVHS Academy of Science & Medicine (coordinator Orenda Tuason).