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Friday, March 29, 2024
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Students Get Excited About Science at STEM Fair

Students from Pearl B. Larsen Elementary School strike a pose for science at the STEM Fair.Larsen Elementary School students were excited Thursday, practically quivering with enthusiasm. And the subject of their excitement?
Science … and math and engineering. They were among more than 250 students from across St. Croix who had entered projects in the annual Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Fair, which is on display through Saturday in the lower level of the Sunshine Mall.
Every St. Croix public school was represented. Participation was optional, and the entries ran a wide gamut; even the youngest got involved.
In the early afternoon Thursday most of the students had left after presenting their projects to the judges. But nine students from Pearl B. Larsen were still on hand, and they were not just eager to show off their projects – they were insistent.
Walton Jack III is a kindergartner, and he studied worms for the fair. Raising 18 worms in a worm farm, he learned how valuable worms are. We couldn’t farm without them, he said, because their castings make soil.
“They’re important and they’re fun,” he said.
His sister, fourth-grader Mya Jack, did a study of palindromic numbers – numbers that are the same forward and backwards, 6556, for example. In her experiment she looked for formulas that allowed her to create such numbers. Picking a number off her chart – say, 27, and adding it to its inverse, 72, yields 99, which reads the same forwards and backwards.
Mya said she came up with the project with the help of her teacher because she enjoys numbers, thinks they’re fun.
Sixth-grader Bria Rouse was justifiably proud of her project to find fun, educational ways to encourage recycling. Her display consisted of a variety of articles she had made from recycled materials – plastic water bottles and lids mostly. They had been fashioned into an array of school equipment – games for teaching math and words, a desk organizer, a musical instrument. The entire grade-school curriculum was represented.
Asked if her teachers might adopt some of her creations for their classrooms, she said, “Most of them already do use these in their classrooms.”
Of course, the Pearl B. Larsen contingent were not the only students on hand. Regina Evans, a junior at the Educational Complex, had taken her own situation and made a science project out of it, learning valuable information in the process.
Regina is troubled with allergies, and was surprised to notice that she suffered more indoors than outdoors. So she performed an experiment to determine whether indoor or outdoor air was cleaner. Cardboard squares coated with petroleum jelly trapped pollen and other pollutants in the air and she was able to count them and discover that, sure enough, the air indoors contained more particles than the outdoor air.
“Ninety percent of our time is spent indoors,” she said, “at home, at school, in stores. And the air indoors isn’t as clean as the air outdoor,” adding, "Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
Rosa White, district science coordinator for the St. Croix public schools, and Juanita Boneque, the math coordinator, shared responsibility for organizing the fair. White said the fair gives students a chance to indulge their interest in science and math.
And it has a lasting effect, she added. Many of this year’s volunteer judges are former students who have gone on to college but came back in time to take part, evaluating and encouraging the next generation of bright minds growing up in the community.
The STEM Fair can be seen at the Sunshine Mall through Saturday. And anyone interested who stops by can consider themselves lucky if the contingent from Pearl. B. Larsen Elementary is there.
Because they’ll explain it all to you. They’ll insist on it.

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