By Lori BODNAR, intern

Over two hundred Mountain Avenue Elementary School students and their families enjoyed an ocean of adventure at the 10th annual Science Fun Fair on Friday, Feb. 1. The theme this year was “Dive Deeper into Science!” recalling the science of aquatic exploration including famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau (inventor of the Aqua-Lung). Entry into the science fair was voluntary and open to grades from transitional kindergarten (TK) to sixth. 

There were more than 150 students who entered science projects. In addition, 40 sixth-grade students competed in the “Great Paper Roller Coaster Engineering Challenge.” The goal was to design and build a roller coaster made out of paper cardstock and tape that could keep a marble rolling down the coaster the longest. The students worked in teams of two to four people to complete the coaster, learning about engineering design and physics principles such as inertia, momentum, velocity, energy and acceleration in the process.

Second grade student Suzy Bodnar echoed the comments of many: “I really liked the paper roller coaster challenge!”   

One of the highlights of the Science Fun Fair was the on-site Aquarium of the Pacific mobile aquarium touch tank, housed in a semi-truck parked on the kindergarten play yard. Kids and parents loved seeing and touching the sea creatures. There were rough-skinned small sharks, prickly purple sea urchins, colorful sticky sea anemones, bumpy sea stars and smooth sea snails.

“I liked the touch tank. In the touch tank there were starfish, three real sharks, sea anemones, and sea urchins,” said Pranav Arunachalam, a third grader. “The sea urchins hugged my finger and the sea anemone was very sticky.”

Pranav entered a science project called “What Minerals Are in the Soil?” His brother, first-grader Vivek Arunachalam, also entered a science project, “Walking Rainbow Water.” Last year, their older brother Mahesh Arunachalam and his teammate Mihir Manchikatla won second place at the Los Angeles County Science & Engineering Fair, as well as placing in the Top 300 at the Broadcom Masters National competition (see CV Weekly, Sept. 20, 2018).

The Crescenta Valley High School robotics team (FRC 589) brought its cube-stacking robot Galileo, which was designed to compete in the FIRST Robotics Challenge 2018 Power Up! Game. FRC 589 team members were Claire Gantan, Shyla Summers, Joey Brown and Lukas Fullner (Lukas attends Clark Magnet High School).  The CVHS robotics team is supervised by CVHS teacher Greg Neat and liaison Lyn Repath-Martos. 

“Thank you for the opportunity to share our robot with your students and their families,” said Repath-Martos. “Our goal is to inspire as many folks across our community as we can!” 

Shyla Summers is a junior on the robotics team.

“It is a really fun experience to be part of robotics because it is something that has real world applications,” she said. “I really enjoy being a member of the robotics club.”

Mountain Avenue robotics teams were also at the Science Fair. There are 12 students and two First Lego League teams, supervised by Mountain Avenue teachers Jennifer Garrubba and Laurie McFarlane. Former Mountain Avenue students Sarah Chin and Ally Bell, now at CVHS and Waverly in Pasadena, also help mentor the Mountain Avenue team to build, program and prepare for their competitions.

“We sure enjoy the Science Fair!” said Garrubba. The elementary students and their families enjoyed seeing and interacting with the robots in the courtyard.

In the auditorium were a variety of student science projects, including a Van de Graaf Generator and a Mars rover. The Van de Graaf Generator used electrostatic repulsion of like charges to make people’s hair stand up making students laugh at the comical sight. The Mars Rover had students and adults lying on the ground as the rover rolled over their backs.

The science fair projects explored different topics, and students could work alone or in teams. Since there was no judging for the projects, they could also receive help from parents if needed.

One team project, Project Mc2, explored food science activities. Alisha Singh, a second grade student who worked on Project Mc2 also did a team project with her little sister, kindergartener Alina, describing “How Wood Becomes Paper.” Other projects explored electricity, germs, volcanoes, geodes, wind power, solar power, slime, circuits, lemon or potato batteries, seed germination, trains, tornadoes, DNA, cleaning pennies using a vinegar chemical reaction and making a robotic hand. In addition there were static wand fly sticks that could float tinsel shapes, whirlpool tubes, dry ice fog bubbles and an air cannon. The air cannon showed the power of wind and how it can make waves across ocean water. There were also fun sea animal crafts and origami, a Cartesian diver nicknamed “Squiddy” that used air pressure to move up and down when a bottle is squeezed, a plasma globe, and an ocean-in-a-box display that held a variety of ocean shells, sand dollars and a dried seahorse. In another room, there were two microscopes where students could look at moving microscopic plankton from actual seawater. There were also other interesting specimens to look at under the microscope. Some students also tried pH testing to measure the acidity or alkalinity of various solutions such as lemon juice, orange juice, milk, water, seawater, soapy water and a baking soda solution.

Many PTA volunteers worked together to make the Science Fun Fair possible.  The co-chairs were Meena Chokkalinga Arunachalam and Jackie Bodnar. In addition, over 30 volunteers from Rosemont Middle School and CVHS Academy of Science and Medicine came to help. Steve Schroeder, a NASA/JPL parent, brought the Mars rover. Science fair tri-fold project boards were donated to the school by Synopsis Outreach Foundation.

To top off the fun-filled night of science exploration and learning, the Bodnar and Arunachalam families compared the height of soda-geysers generated from Diet Coke/Mentos vs. Diet Pepsi/Mentos, a science fair tradition. The result was a tie; both geysers exploded over 15 into the air.