Exploring Science with Severna Park Elementary Students

Severna Park Elementary fifth-graders have been busy learning which fruit creates the strongest battery, what golf balls soar the farthest and what potato contains the most starch—all in the name of science.

The school hosted its fourth annual science fair on Friday and students shared posters and results of various projects. The projects were completed entirely at home and the fair gave the students an opportunity to share what they have learned.

Fifth-grader Jake Powell did his project on golf balls as he tried to determine if more expensive balls soared father than cheaper ones. He found that the cheaper Top Flight balls went the farthest, but discovered there were some inconsistencies in his method.

“I found that I needed a robot to get a consistent swing every single time,” Jake said. “So it wasn’t really a fair trial.”

Ten-year-old Emily Allgair set out to find which candy produced the highest amount of fizz when added to Sprite. She tested Pop Rocks, ZotZ and Mentos.

“The Mentos created a big fizz, but didn’t explode, which we thought was pretty cool,” Emily said.

Mary Gorski and Madeline McGee also incorporated types of food in their projects.

Mary executed experiments to find out which potato was the starchiest, and Madeline discovered which type of fruit creates the strongest battery.

“Limes were the best battery probably because they had the same amount of acid as a lemon but they were smaller,” Madeline said.

To learn more about these fifth-grader science projects, check out the video attached to this article.