Students display their knowledge of scientific method

The Triton Elementary School gym was a sea of posters filled with questions and conclusions about scientific questions last Thursday as the fourth and fifth grade students presented the results of their science projects.
In the morning volunteer judges from throughout the community met with each individual student to hear an explanation of the project. Then, in the evening, the students were again with their projects in an opportunity to explain them to parents and the public.
All fourth and fifth grade students participate in the science fair, said fourth grade teacher Jon Wright. The teachers work with the students to come up with an idea for their project, he said, but after that it is up to the student and parents to see the projects through to completion.
In addition to being a learning experience for the students, he said, it is also a way to get parents involved in the educational process.
There are several ways to come up with a project idea, he said. There are websites that offer science project ideas and sometimes a student comes up with an idea on their own. Either way, they try to find a project the student is interested in.
“We try to hit an interest spot,” Wright said.
The process starts, Wright said, with a question to be investigated; a question where the answer is not known. The student comes up with a hypothesis and then goes on to test that hypothesis. The student then compares the hypothesis to the results and comes to a conclusion.
“All this is done at home,” Wright said. It is a cooperative project with the parents being involved, he said, but it is the work of the student.
When the projects are completed they are first presented to classmates and then to judges, Wright said. The judges are drawn from the community, he said. Many are former teachers, some are Triton faculty or administrators and some are interested community members. Wright said the school has a list of people who have expressed an interest in judging.
This year, he said, there were 26 judges participating including Superintendent Brett Joyce, Middle School Principal Mark Raymond, former Dodge County Sheriff Jim Jensen and community member David Hanson.
The judges ask the student such questions as why they chose that particular project, how they tested their idea, what they thought the answer would be and what it turned out to be as well as what they learned from their project. The judges are more concerned, Wright said, with the process the student used to reach their conclusion and their knowledge of the project than with the physical look of the display.