MONROE — Monroe High School hosted its second annual STEAM Fair March 14. 

The fair was great way to share all of the work being done at science at Monroe High School and included many different demonstrations and displays including the Monroe High School Science Club, Project Lead the Way, gaming demonstrations and face painting.

The primary event at the fair was the judging of over 100 different science research projects freshman students had done during the course of the year. The projects ranged from experiments about cell shrinkage to experiments about potato cannons. 

There were many volunteers who took time out of their own day to come and judge the experiments.

The overall winner of the STEAM fair science research projects was Taylor Rufer with her project titled, The Effect of Age on Recovery Time. In her project she states, “I had my test subjects of different ages run for three minutes and then I timed how long it took to get back to their resting heart rate.” She found a positive correlation between age and recovery time and then calculated an equation for the rate of increase in recovery time per year of life.

The runner up trophy went to Delaney Wickstrum and Blake Mueller with their project Stimulation vs. Free Throws. Their project studied the effect of making noise, positive or negative, and its effect on the accuracy of the free throw percentages. 

The third place overall award went to Alvin Buholzer and Jason Carpenter with the project titled, Cold Clock Work. This project questioned what temperature of water would freeze the fastest. Carpenter stated at the fair that their motivation came from watching the Zamboni at hockey games. They wanted to know the science of how fast the ice would freeze.

Fourth place went to Sierra McGuire whose project was titled, How Does the Color of Light Affect Plant Growth. During this project, Sierra studied how what the effect of using different colored lights had on the height of a bean plant. She then correlated peak wavelengths for plant growth.

Other notable awards given out were the Teachers Choice Awards. These were to Allie Cline, Kennedy Klemm and Ava Scace for their project, The Effect of Mountain Dew on Tooth Decay; and Heath Huschitt and Aaron Roidt for their project, How Does Sugar Affect Our Cells. Parents’ choice awards were given to Mitchell Rowe and Ethan Schmidt for their work in The Effect of pH on Pills; and Jade Lara and Anika Rath with their project The Effect of Age on Short Term Memory. Student Choice Awards were Madyson Hill and Sally Grenzow for their work on the project, Musical Minds; and Amelia Suthers and her work with The Effect of the Amount of Salt in Water on the Freezing Temperature.

The STEAM fair was a huge success for everyone.