PHOTO BY PAULA MULLER
Thomas Estella, right, explains his project, which tested cell phones for the amount of radiation they emitted, to judge Greg Beaman at the eighth-grade science fair at St. John the Baptist School in Peabody.
By JEFF SHMASE
PEABODY — The culmination of four months of preparation, experiments, data collection and report writing finally concluded on Wednesday for 39 St. John the Baptist School eighth-graders with the annual science fair, held at the school’s gymnasium. The pupils began their individually chosen projects in October, and were assigned to perform the scientific method — make observations, propose a hypothesis, analyze data to determine whether the hypothesis was correct, and if necessary, propose and test a new hypothesis.
With tri-fold presentations on tables, and reports and experiments besides them, seven judges evaluated the projects, with medals going to the top three students.
Teacher and fair coordinator Lisa Rush said the kids were a combined excited and nervous, since some of them are more comfortable speaking publicly than others.
One student who was at ease talking about his project in which he measured the amount of electromagnetic radiation of commonly used devices such as cell phones and iPads was Thomas Estella. He hypothesized that the later model iPhones, for example, would give off less radiation than the newer models. What he found was the opposite, for the most part. The iPhone 4s emitted less radiation than the iPhone 5s, and the iPhone 6 emitted more than the 5s. However, the 6s model gave off less than the 5s.
The Samsung cell phones he tested gave off more radiation than the Apple brand cell phones.
Estella said he decided to undertake his project because of the popularity of the devices. He added that studies on the subject are unclear as to whether the radiation associated with these devices is harmful.
Austin Higinbotham did his project on windmills because he always wondered how they worked. The Peabody resident seemed to have a strong knowledge on the subject matter and used an air compressor and a windmill kit, in an effort to see how the two sources of power co-existed.
Higinbotham said he is a proponent of windmills because they are a power source that do not negatively impact the environment.
Sam Silvestro did his project on fingerprint patterns and based his hypothesis on the notion that a child’s fingerprints were inherited from one of his or her parents.Silvestro tested 61 people from 12 families and his results showed it was true in two thirds of the cases. The remaining one third inherited either their arch, loop or whorl fingerprint from a previous generation, Silvestro added.
Eighth-grader Tatiana Rosario looked at the relationship between temperature and elasticity. She thought a rubber band might be most likely to expand during room temperature, but what she learned was the band was impacted the most when the temperature reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
Estella, Silvestro and Higinbotham placed first, second and third, according to the judges. Honorable Mentions went to Nathaniel Winders, Sabrina Correia, Antonio Craviero, Kate Keenan and Brendan Bouchard.
The science fair was held in collaboration with National Catholic Schools Week, which ends Friday. The school also held an open house yesterday.