Northampton Area Middle School opened its doors to family and community members to come and support the students taking part in the school science fair April 13.

This is the fourth year for the science fair, according to Scott Oste, science department leader and sixth-grade teacher. He is proud of the continued growth of the event and the quality of the projects.

“We feel it is important for them to follow their passions,” he said.

Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students gathered in the cafeteria to present the projects they have been working on for months. Oste mentioned how proud he is of these students for following through on their projects and seeing them to the finish. He said how important it is for the students to work through a problem using the scientific process.

“The journey is the most important part,” he said.

He noted they have learned important skills through the process, including determination, follow-through, presentation skills, public speaking, collaboration and problem solving.

The judges named the top two projects for each grade level as the winners. The honorable mention projects were also named. All the science fair participants will participate in a field trip to Buzzi Unicem, Hercules Cement plant to do an environmental project. They also received a science fair wristband and participation ribbon. The overall winners, including honorable mention, also received a certificate and will participate in the science day at Dorney Park.

The winning projects from sixth grade were Abigail Brown’s study of how global warming affects the growth of algae and Anne Beenders and Morgan Druckenmiller’s study of ball inflation in relation to bounce height. Anna Hirsch’s study of how different drinks affect teeth and Yasmeena Dale and Carrie Peifly’s study into which gender takes classwork more seriously in sixth-grade classes were the winning projects for seventh grade. The eighth-grade winners were Madison Salter for her study of host stars and Ashlee Kitzhoffer for her project studying the effects of aquaponics versus hydroponics on lettuce growth.

The honorable mention projects included sixth-grade students Mackenzie Connell for her study on which fruit has the most vitamin C and Abigail Urban for her project regarding the DNA of strawberries. Two eighth-grade projects also received honorable mention. Samreen-Joy Minhas and Annabel Pyne studied the language of facial expressions, and Adrian Mohrey and Hannah Krywonis worked to find which concentration of soap extracted the most DNA.

To allow the judges more time to study the projects, there were STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) projects set up in other parts of the school. These projects included a Lego build station, paper activities, seed pods and an augmented reality sandbox machine. Students and their families were able to explore creativity and science together with these activities while the judges deliberated.

NAMS Principal Patrice Turner took the time to express how proud she is of the students involved.

“I was so impressed by the passion and talent of these students,” she said.

Oste made sure to thank the people responsible for such a successful event. These thanks included district administration, Turner and other NAMS personnel, the school’s technology, custodial and security teams and the science fair committee. This year’s science fair committee included sixth-grade teachers Kristen Sevinsky and Zachary Winter, seventh-grade teacher Amie Marks and eighth-grade teacher Jason Jones.

“I would not want to work with anyone but them,” Oste said, regarding their efforts and collaboration on the event.