It was showtime on Friday for some young scientists at the Altoona Area School District.
About 500 10th graders presented the projects they’ve been working on at the district’s 9th Annual Chemistry Symposium.
“I think it’s a very informative and fun project to do,” said Sierra Lafavor, a student. “It gets you involved [and] teaches you about all the elements.”
Each of the students had to build a model of an atom, then work as a team with their classmates to do further research on the families of elements and create displays depicting their discoveries.
“At first I didn’t think it was fun but the fact that we got to work with our friends to get this done, it actually helped a lot and I thought it was really fun,” said 10th grader Reece McManamy.
A new feature of the symposium this year is projects by forensic chemistry students. They worked on crime scene scenarios and challenged other students to solve the cases.
Chemistry teacher Christine Falger talked about why the district hosts this event.
“We try to make it so that the kids find that education is fun,” said Falger. “We try to make interesting, we try to make it that they want to learn what we want to teach them and this way they can do it at their own pace in their own style.”
The project cumulated with the students getting the experience of participating in a “real world” science convention.
