Science Fair

Last week at this time Lauren's science fair project was due, so we took it down to the Middle School to be judged. Last night we got to go to the STAR Expo and check out the projects (book reports and such) that our middle school kids (Logan and Lauren) had been working on all year. Sorry no pictures of the projects :(. I guess I could pull up the Ronald Reagan book report but you have all seen that one. I didn't want to take a picture of our board game, frankly I had seen enough of that one and don't care to ever see it again. (Maybe his teacher would like to keep it as a sample for next year?)

We were also able to see Lauren's science fair project plus a lot of other really neat science experiments. Here is Lauren's display board!

Lauren project was entitled: Apples to Apples. She tested different ways of treating apples and Apple Dippers to see how long it took each apple slice to turn brown. This was definitely an educational experience and we learned much.

One apple slice she did not treat at all, another slice was treated in Sprite (soak 60 seconds on each side), the third slice was treated in pure lemon juice (soak 60 seconds on each side) and the fourth slice was an Apple Dipper from McDonald's. So we let them set out at room temp for days!

As you can probably guess the slice that was not treated started turning brown within an hour and the slice in Sprite followed shortly behind! Now the the one treated in lemon juice lasted really about a good day but the Apple Dipper started to dry out before it turned brown.

This is not a good picture of our results (and to be honest with you this picture was taken the second time we ran the experiment due to a small accident with the apple slices. (UBBY)) Also the second time we ran the test we used 7-Up and it didn't keep the slice fresh very long either. :(

OUR findings: we don't know what the Apple Dippers are treated in to last that long in that bag and then 2 days on our counter--but we are thinking next time you should just order the french fries--they might be better for you! (Also those Apple Dippers don't even taste like apples.) So next time you have apple slice and need to treat them use lemon juice it works best.

So for completing her project she and some of her other classmates will be traveling to the Challenger Learning Center for a day of Scientific Fun.

(For those of you that checked the blog today for more pictures of Murphy those will be coming tomorrow. And for those of you that were hoping that I finally have my Bathrooms and Bedroom makeover pictures ready---hang on that post will be coming soon. Sorry things have been really busy here.!)