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MANVILLE: Weston’s young experimenters present studies at science fair

By Mary Ellen Zangara, Special Writer
   Students at Weston School put their creativity and knowledge to use, during the school’s science fair, Feb. 19 in the gym. Second-grade teacher Laura Landau coordinated the fair with about 80 participants from kindergarten to third grade.
   ”I hope we will have even more students involved next year,” Ms. Landau said. “We are thankful for our judges and everyone who came to investigate the experiments.”
   Ms. Landau said the perenially-popular volcano experiments were again a favorite, although some students found some new experiments — the students’ projects also included dinosaur extinction, liquid and density, melting ice crystals, electromagnets and fingerprints.
   The students’ experiments were judged by Manville High School Principal Donald Woodring, and Board of Education members Andrew Zangara, Heidi Alles, Gary Cortelyou, Jeanne Lombardino and Joseph Lukac.
   Students had to explain to the judges how their experiment worked and show what the experiment did. The students were also able to show and explain their experiments to parents, teachers and classmates who attended the science fair.
   First-place winners received a medal and the other winners received ribbons, which were provided by the Weston PTA. Each child who participated received a certificate and participation ribbon.
   The science fair winners included kindergarteners Donald Hujber’s “Magnetic Forces” (first place); second-place honors went to Eric Gonzalez and Angelo Drake took for their “Electricity” project, and to Sarah Colucci’s “Windmills for Clean Energy”; Volcano projects by Leilani Lee, Joshua Calderon, Alex Peters and Robert Wicdwald won third-place awards. The honorable mention was given to Alexis Abbott (Primary Colors) and Yekaterina Saburovo.
   Shannon Buda’s class project studying volcanoes won third-places honors.
   ”They all came up and made a prediction whether the vinegar or water would make a reaction,” Ms. Buda said. “One day after school, we all came together to see what the reaction was.”
   First-graders award winners included first-place winner Rebecca Stokes’ “Electric motors” project; Cole Chapkowski and Luis Acosta’s second-place award winning “Homemade Batteries” presentation; and third place went to Nicholas Mattei for his “Balloon Experiment.”
   An honorable mention was given to Mackenzie Brown for her “Floating Egg” project, which she demonstrated to everyone at the event.
   ”I am going to put some salt into a cup and then put the egg in — it will float,” she said.
   ”Salt is heavier than the egg,” she concluded. Mackenzie practiced the experiment many times to make sure she was able to do it, after seeing the idea on a Web site and trying it out.
   Winning projects by the second-graders included first place winner Emma Thompson’s “Moldy Bread”; second-place winner Marina Saburova’s demagnetizing experiment; third-place awards were given to John Mayer (volcanoes) and Alex Fisher (“How strong is an egg”). The honorable-mention award was given to Samantha Zuza for her study of “How facial hair grows.”
   Third-grader winners were Novena Petryk-Cordi, whose “Finger On It” won first-place honors; a demonstration of melting ice earned the second-place award for Blake Iacovelli; Sarah Hujber won third place with her study of “Chemilumine science.” Honorable mention went to Jorge Cespedes “Robots.”