Students showcase science skills at Wareham Middle School exposé

All is fair in science and technology at Wareham Middle School.
Students from across the school took part in the second annual Science and Technology Fair, which kicked off Thursday morning. There, students showcased projects they’ve been working on since classes started in September.
“It’s neat to see just how quiet and attentive they were (looking at each others projects),” said sixth-grade science teacher Kimberlee Scott, one of the organizers of the fair who also spent time at Wareham High School and helped bring the event to the middle school. “They were dying all morning to see what each other had done.”
Dozens of booths lined the gymnasium, and students showed off their projects to each other and to several visitors in attendance, including members of the School Committee.
Sixth-grader Avery Gillman got his idea for a hoverboard, or a device that floats off the ground powered by air (in this case from a leaf blower), from a Do-It-Yourself book he found in the school’s library.
“It’s got a plywood base and a plastic sheet to capture the air underneath,” he said after a brief demonstration where he slid easily across the gym’s floor.
At the other end of the gym, eighth-graders Connor Walsh and Kyran Pina experimented with dry ice.
“It just looked really cool,” said Walsh when asked why the two chose that particular substance.
Pina said they got different results from dropping the dry ice in water at different temperatures.
“The hot water produces more fog,” said Pina, "but the cold lasts longer."
Fifth-graders Olivia Powers and Riley Glass chose to show the effects different drinks have on humans’ teeth, and as one may suspect, soda had the worst results.
“We put teeth in jars of different liquids,” said Powers, noting that they used their own baby teeth in the experiment. “After a week, we documented the changes. We did the same for second week, then we took a survey at the school.”
After only two weeks, soda had turned a tooth almost completely brown, while Gatorade turned a tooth pink. Water, surprisingly, broke one of the teeth into three pieces.
“Tooth enamel dissolves at 5.5 pH,” added Powers.
Scott said that winners of the fair would be announced Thursday evening after parents and others viewed the booths after school. Ten winners would advance to the regional finals at Regis College in April, with the top winner going to both the regional final and the state final at Worcester Technical High School in June.
School Committee member Michael Flaherty was also on hand.
“I loved it,” he said. “I absolutely loved it. They asked me to come, so I took some time off of work to do it. I’m glad I did.”
“This is a huge accomplishment,” added Scott.