Two years ago, a group of Catholic middle school parents and teachers seeking to enrich science education in their schools decided it would be good to establish an annual science fair in which their students could participate. On March 23, Our Lady of Fatima School hosted the Second Annual Alliance of North Seattle Deanery of Cath-olic Middle Schools Science Fair. Two of the 13 schools eligible to participate were St. Anne School, in Queen Anne, and Magnolia's Our Lady of Fatima.
The rules emphasized and advocated a student-driven project to foster an interest in inquiry-based science as stu-dents designed and conducted their ex-periments - individually or with a partner - using the scientific method.
More than 130 pupils voluntarily submitted 78 projects to what turned out to be a spectacular event. Thirty-nine professionals from the local scientific, engineering and teaching communities volunteered to serve as judges, interview the young scientists and provide each project an independent objective evaluation.
Father Jim Johnson, Our Lady of Fa-tima Parish School Pastor, presented the awards to the first-, second- and third-place winners in each grade. St. Anne's Ariana Moini won second place/sixth grade for "How Polluted Liquids Effect Plants." OLF students singled out for their work were: Grace Carter, third place/sixth grade for her project "Tooth Decay Substances"; Patrick Hogan and Joe Petrich, first place/eighth grade for "Toothpick Trebuchet"; and sixth-graders Alaina Bever and Annie Matous, whose "Do certain laundry soaps work better?" was recognized by the judges with a Special Award for Most Real-Life Experiment.
OLF parent Katie Thurman served as this year's Science Fair Coordinator with support from OLF science teacher Don Boitano and St. Anne science teacher Rosemary Sweet.
Local participants included St. Anne sixth-graders Chase An-derson and Demetre Skepetaris, Philip Burton and Olli Gelmini, Sophie De Groot, Alexa Driscoll and Madeleine Kehl, Sarah Gebauer and Janie Hig-gins, Una Harris and Francene Ray, and Charlotte Platt; OLF sixth-graders Evan Baron and Pat Sobba, Bridget Bartlett, Alaina Bever and Annie Ma-tous, Drew Busse, Grace Carter, Madeline Colman and Darlene Graham, Joey Guinasso and Spencer Ramquist, and Chris Sobba and Jack Waechter;
St. Anne seventh-graders Joseph Bjorkman and Davis Bruce-Rennick, and Emma Brooks; OLF seventh-graders Elli Armantrout and Ashley Pen-hollow, Charley Barr and Paolo Mag-no, Maddie Booth and Clare Scheer, Elizabeth Breen and Andrea Miller, Leila Buker and Erin Murphy, Bevan Davis and Maura McNamara, Emily Hozack, Matthew Leff and Blake Loen, and Audrey Parks and Hannah Smith;
St. Anne eighth-graders Kasey LeMay and Ariana Moini (independently); and OLF eighth-graders Nick Bever and Nick Miller, Patrick Hogan and Joe Petrich.
-Submitted by Katie Podolak Thurman; photos by Julie Szmania
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