Mars, Milk, Manure To Be Showcased At County Science Fair

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — Elementary, junior high and high school students will be showcasing a host of simple and complex projects -- from medicinal uses of cow manure to producing optimal tires for trekking around Mars -- next week during the Riverside County Science & Engineering Fair.

About 500 students from private and public schools throughout the county are slated to take part in the event, scheduled Monday and Tuesday at the Riverside Convention Center.

Top finishers will be eligible for spots at the California State Science Fair, set for April 23-24 in Los Angeles.

According to the county Office of Education, a total of 415 projects will be presented at next week's event, covering nearly two dozen subject matter categories, from animal sciences to robotics.

Fourth-grader Cameron Kennedy from Anna House Elementary School in Beaumont will demonstrate how to make a faster snow sled using over-the-counter products.

Fifth-grader Keiran Martinez from Bautista Creek Elementary School in Hemet said he will illustrate the methods that might be permit a person to "cut an onion without crying."

"My hypothesis is there are certain techniques that will slow down the chemical process in the onion to lessen or prevent tears," he said.

Fifth-grader Cameron Conner from Three Rings Ranch Elementary School in Beaumont employed custom-programmed software and a 3D printer to create a tire optimized for use on the Red Planet, which he will display at the fair.

"I designed and tested my own Mars Rover tires versus the tires on the Curiosity Mars rovers designed by NASA/JPL," the youngster said. "I found that my tread designs were more efficient."

Seventh-grader Samer Zidan from the Riverside STEM Academy will go through the steps the youth followed to ascertain "which antibiotics in cow manure allow a pepper plant to grow taller." Ranch cattle receive antibiotic shots to ward off various infections, usually when they're still calves.

"Antibiotics in the cows' manure does really affect the plants and growth," the student said. "The antibiotics that were the least harmful to cows were the ones that worked the best on the plants."

Eleventh-graders Krystal Horton and Tanner Packham from the Western Academy in Hemet explored, and intend to show, how gamma ray wave stimulation could be used to eliminate beta-amyloid plaques thought to induce Alzheimer's disease.

"Alzheimer's affects more than a million people in the United States and kills more than 100,000 each year," the pair said in an introduction to their project. "So far, no effective treatment has been discovered."

An awards ceremony recognizing students who scored highest for projects in each category will be held Tuesday evening.

— By City News Service / Image by Dmytro Zinkevych, shutterstock.com