Science Fair

Kaitlyn and Karissa each decided they wanted to do an experiment for the Science Fair. Karissa quickly decided she wanted to do a study on birds and that she would use several different kinds of bird feeders and see which one the birds liked most. Her title was "Do Birds Prefer A Certain Kind of Bird Feeder?" She and Paul built some bird feeders and put them out along with some that we bought. She started with 5 cups of bird seed in each feeder and measured every three days to see how things were going. She refilled the feeders to 5 cups every time she measured. Her hypothesis was that the house bird feeder would attract the most birds because she thought they would feel more at home in a house (I thought that was cute). I figured the platform feeder or the ground feeder would be the winner since they are more open and all sizes of birds can eat from them. In the end, Karissa's hypothesis was correct and the house bird feeder did get eaten from more. One thing we found was that the tube feeder got very little activity because we were getting a lot of large birds and they were scaring the smaller birds away. We even had a hawk sitting on top of one of the feeders. I think he was enjoying all the extra bird activity as well. Anyway, Karissa worked so hard on her project and learned so much from it. She got a certificate for participating.

Kaitlyn on the other hand could not decide what she wanted to learn about. She first started out wanting to do her project on Pluto but then changed her mind to doing a project using yeast. She said that she became interested in yeast after we took a field trip to a Pizza restaurant and she got to watch the dough being made and then got to see what it looked like after sitting over night. She also likes to watch the dough raise when I make bread. So she decided that she would do an experiment using active dry and rapid rise yeast. Her title was: "Active Dry vs. Rapid Rise" "The Effect of Yeast on Bread". She wanted to find out if rapid rise really raises faster than active dry yeast. Her hypothesis was that the Rapid Rise yeast would raise faster based on information she read on the yeast website. In the end, her hypothesis was correct. The rapid rise yeast rose an inch higher in an hour than the active dry. She also thought it tasted better and looked better than the bread made with the active dry. Anyway, Kaitlyn ended up getting second place on her project. We were all proud of her and the work she put into her project.

Both girls did a great job and learned a lot from their projects. I learned something from each as well. I also learned that Kaitlyn can bake some pretty good bread!!