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Park Ridge students shine at state science fair
Jack Kohler
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Updated: July 8, 2012 8:13AM
Six seventh-graders from St. Paul of the Cross Catholic School in Park Ridge earned gold awards for science projects they exhibited in the Illinois Junior Academy of Science State Exposition held May 5 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Nearly 1,000 projects from across the state, consisting of oral and written reports, as well as presentation boards, were exhibited and judged.
Jack Kohler and Joseph Davies exhibited projects exploring physics. Kohler’s project looked at the effect of slope on the speed of a moving car, while Davies’ project used an electronic tuner to measure the musical note that is heard when a wet finger is run along the run of crystal goblets filled with varying levels of water.
Marie Downey’s engineering project explored the topic of wind energy by testing blade shapes in a wind turbine and the effect on the amount of electricity that is produced. Focusing on engineering, Margaret Cahill compared three bridge designs and built 30 bridges measuring the amount of mass that can be added to a bridge before it collapses.
In the area of health science, Joshua Blake built an apparatus in order to determine the impact of age on a person’s peripheral vision. Julia Klages, focusing on environmental science, studied oil spills and measured the size of air bubbles released from plants growing in water at the time of an oil spill.
— By Jennifer Johnson
