Science Fair Winner!

Last week was the school science fair. Lexi started working on her project a few weeks ago and it turned out really great. She won First Place for all of the 5th grade classes (participation is mandatory for 5th grade so there were approximately 75 participants!) She even got a check for $15. She was very excited and can't wait to come up with something great for next years project. This year her project was "Bendable Bones." She put chicken bones into 5 different liquids with varying acidity levels to see what would happen. It was meant to simulate what happens in our bodies if we don't have enough calcium. There are cells in the body called osteoclasts that pull calcium from the bones if you don't have enough calcium in your bloodstream, which leads to weakened bones. The liquids she used were milk, pineapple juice, coke, vinegar and lemon juice. After 3 days the bones in the vinegar, and especially in the lemon juice (the liquid with the highest acidity level), started to get "rubbery" because they were losing calcium. After about a week they were really bendable. It was a cool experiment. I'm very proud of my girl and also very glad that I no longer have nasty looking jars of oozy liquid sitting in my kitchen window! Have you ever seen what happened to milk when it's been sitting out for a week! Uggggghhhhh!

Next year we will have to have projects for both Lexi and Zac. Oh boy! Better get started now....science fair takes a lot of time and patience!