PHOTOS: Medford Students In First Family Science Night

MEDFORD, MA - The Roberts Elementary School held its first ever Family Science Night. In a release the school department said the event was well-attended and featured a number of science experiments that students were able to participate in such as:

Experiment 1 – A Catapult Table – students could make two different types of catapults and experiment with changing the fulcrum, force, torque, etc., to see how far they could launch different loads.

Experiment 2 – Cleaning Water Table – students had to filter horrifically dirty water through different filters and predict which would work best to clean the water.

Experiment 3 – Renewable Energy Table – students made different pinwheels to see if changing the shape and angle of the blades changed the amount of wind they harnessed. The “wind” was created by blow dryers and fans.

Experiment 4 – Germ Table – students could see how germs are transferred. This involved dipping their fingers in lotion and glitter and transferring it onto paper images of boys and girls. The heading on the images read; “Look at me, I am not germ free!” They got laminated germ free handwashing songs and safety tips on how not to transfer germs.

Experiment 5 – How Food Spoils Table – student could see how food spoils when germs and bacteria get on it. They were able to add “germs/bacteria” aka lemon juice to warm milk to see how it curdles. They studied different stages of moldy bread to see that covering and refrigerating food keeps bacteria off.

Experiment 6 – Gas Table – student got to creat bacterial gas by adding sugar and yeast to water to see how the bacteria “yeast” eats up the sugar and causes a gas. It blew up a balloon attached to a bottle.

During the day, the Roberts PTO sponsored a school science show, called, “Super Cool Science” and high school students earned community service hours by assisting the Roberts students with the experiments, according to a release. The event was masterminded by teachers at the Roberts, lead by Mrs. Joanne McKay and assisted by Cheryl Rodrigues from the Roberts PTO, according to a release. The PTO funded the science show and all props needed for the evening, said a release.