Written By: Lucy McPherson, Staff Writer
SCIENCE: Honors Chemistry students work hard for this year’s district science fair.
This year’s honors chemistry students have worked hard on their science fair projects. From projects on plants to human studies and chemistry topics, students excelled at the District Science Fair on Friday, January 24th.
Sophomore Maya Moran and her group titled their project “The Art of Enfleurage: Crafting Your Perfect Scent” and chose to study how to “make perfume via enfleurage.” Enfleurage is a perfume-making technique that dates back to the mid-1700s, and the concept is “extracting oils from flowers and letting them absorb into fat.” The group then “tested many rounds of enfleurage it would take to get a pleasant scent with two different flowers, carnations and roses.” This group’s favorite part of the science fair was “meeting kids from other schools and getting to know them and their research.”
Sophomore Olivia Maciel and her team researched “how music affects memory, specifically in high school students and when studying.” Their results showed that students tend to do best when studying without music; however, it is a less enjoyable experience this way. Her favorite part was “seeing so many other cool projects and being involved in something sciency with other people who share my interest in science.”
Samantha Reed, a sophomore at Poly, researched how to make “different kinds of structures out of different materials and how they would withstand a simulation of an earthquake.” The goal of her project was to “find the attributes of an ideal structure that can best withstand the seismic powers of an earthquake.” Samantha’s favorite part of the science fair “was presenting my project to the different judges.” She shared that it was scary at first, but as time went on, the experience became more fun.
While this article only covered a few of the amazing projects that were born from the minds of Poly students this year, all of the sophomores and returning scientists selected for this year’s science fair worked so hard on their projects, and we wish them the best of luck at the award ceremony on January 29th!