Seventh-Grade Science Research Projects

Science teacher Tara Verenna’s seventh-grade class is busy with a variety of interesting science research projects this week.

Ivy S. and Keira H. are raising baby chicks, using different types of food supplements to see which one helps the chicks grow the best. The newly hatched chicks came to them over a week ago, and Ivy and Keira have been weighing them frequently. All the chicks are getting standard chicken feed, and the control chicks are getting only that. The other three batches of chicks are getting pumpkin seeds, mealworms, or apple slices. Which chicks do you think are the heaviest so far?

Middle School Head Ann Sulzer has been a great sport about housing the chickens in her office. A parent helped spot an escapee the other day who climbed out of her cage and wanted to explore. We’re not sure if that was Piglet, Dua Cheepa, Beaklon Musk, or one of the others.

The chicks are of the “Easter Egg” variety, which are “mixed-breed chickens with joyful, amusing personalities” that lay their eggs in a variety of colors including blue, pink, green, and yellow. The fast-growing chicks will be going to live on a free-range farm next week when their service to OES is over.

In other research matters, two teams of students are examining human emotions, using fellow seventh-graders as their subjects. Athena L. and Cooper M. are showing students a video clip intended to elicit happy or sad emotions (baby goats playing vs. a tsunami overtaking a city). They then test how well their subject performs on a math exam.

Becca S. and Cameron F. are also showing emotion-eliciting videos and then testing their subjects’ reaction time. What are your theories on how emotions might affect performance?

Quinn D.B. and Rowen S. are testing different types of bird seed to see which is most enticing. So far, the one “that Google said would be most popular” is in the lead, featuring sunflower seeds.

On the engineering side, Lincoln K. and Rohan H. are making a birdhouse out of reclaimed materials and will test both how durable and how popular the house is with our OES birds (and squirrels).

Joel G. and Jerry Z. are using a drone to carry a container made from popsicle sticks that sprinkles rock salt over a designated area. They are examining how accurately they can control where and how the salt gets deposited. What factors do you think affect how the salt comes out, and where?

Claire M. and Sam Z. are experimenting with water bottles to see if there is a difference between how much bacteria grows in a plastic, glass, or stainless steel water bottle. Sam created a spit sample, which they used to introduce bacteria into the cleaned bottles. They let the bottles sit in a dark place for a week, then swabbed the insides and put the samples in petri dishes, which are now in an incubator. Which bottle do you think has produced the most bacteria? 

Mark your calendars now for MS Science Night on June 1, 2022. It is the culmination of all of the science projects the students have been working on for this unit, which started the first of April. Stay tuned for details!