SCIENCE FACTION

Matt Taylor and John Brookover developed a hypothesis, spent hours testing oils and riding skateboards and then drew a conclusion for a science project that will take them to the Southeast Missouri Regional Science Fair competition today.

The eighth-graders at Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School are among the 251 students who have entered projects in the fair.

A panel of judges will evaluate the 294 projects, which includes both senior and junior high school divisions, this morning at the Show Me Center. The fair will be open to the public at 3:30 p.m., and an awards ceremony will be held at 7 p.m.

Brookover and Taylor said they tried at least six different oils for skateboard wheel bearings before determining that the aerosol sprays work best.

"It makes them go faster," Brookover said.

Students at area schools have spent weeks testing theories and drawing conclusions for their science projects. They've earned a grade for class, and now they have rewritten titles on project boards and retyped reports so they will be ready for the Regional Science Fair.

Entrants in the regional fair were named school winners in one of 12 categories. Entries came from Jefferson County in Missouri to the north all the way to the Arkansas state line.

Winners in the senior division at the regional fair will advance to the International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, Calif., in May. The junior division winners will compete at the international level in Washington, D.C.

The projects really cover a broad range of science topics, based on the students' selection, which can cover a wide range because students are smarter than ever today, said Ruth Hathaway, regional science fair director.

One pair of Central students did a wonderful job on a project that tested skateboard ramps. They even built a ramp complete with a miniature skateboard to show how they completed the study, said Nancy Hey, a science teacher at Central Junior High.

Some students do the project to get a grade, she said, but others really make an impression.

Hey and students Lindsey Smith and Lindsey Jateff each learned something when the girls studied what soap brands had the longest-lasting bubbles.

"We wanted to do something fun," said Lindsey Smith. "We were surprised how it turned out."

Hey said, "I was surprised that when a bubble starts losing its color you know it is going to pop."

And the thicker a soap bubble is, the more colorful it will be, Smith added.

Some of the 16 projects St. Vincent de Paul students are entering include a study of pendulums and what affects their swing, a look at early tooth decay and baby bottle syndrome, and what effects weather and other factors have on seed germination.

Science fair projects also teach plenty of basic life skills, said Marilyn Peters who teaches at St. Vincent de Paul School.

"They learn how to solve problems and how to follow a timeline on a deadline," she said. "They work on the projects for three or four months and find out right away that you can't wait until the last. That's a valuable life skill."

Peters asks university officials to judge the school's fair so that students also have a chance to ask professionals questions about why their projects didn't work.

Making science practical is always a challenge for teachers, Hey said, particularly when it comes to genetics and chemistry, which require a lot of basic math skills.

But when students realize they can complete a project, run tests and draw conclusions that would lead someone else to the same results, then teachers have accomplished their task.

"At this age it's hard for them to learn that they have to write everything down and to observe," Hey said, and the students want everything to be practical, which is why experiments help reinforce the science lessons.

"They need to learn that it's important for someone else to copy their research and get the same results, just like you would if you read a science magazine," Hey said.