PRESSURE ON YOUNG SCIENTISTS : SPORTS FANS GO TO STATE FAIR WITH INFLATION EXPERIMENT.Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer Jenna Ainsworth and Katie McCurdy have combined their love of sports and science into a prize-winning project that will take them to the state Science Fair. In their latest effort, the Colina Middle School Colina Middle School is a public school located in Thousands Oaks, California, United States, part of the Conejo Valley Unified School District. The motto is "Work Hard, Make Friends, and Have Fun." The school mascot is the Colina Cougar. seventh-graders took top prizes at both their school and the Ventura County Science Fair for their project that measures the importance of air pressure in sporting games - an experiment that will appear at the state Science Fair today and Tuesday at the Museum of Science and Industry Museum of Science and Industry can refer to:
Their teacher, Mike Newlon, said their achievement is especially noteworthy because the girls put the kind of intense effort into the project that he typically sees only from students who work alone. ``I thought they did an excellent job, especially since it's really tough to get kids to work together,'' said Newlon, chairman of Colina's science department. ``To show a real team effort like this is exceptional.'' The youngsters won an Award of Excellence, the highest award the school gives, at Colina's Science Fair on March 5, Newlon said. That qualified the girls' project for the county Science Fair, where they won first place in their age group in seventh-grade physics. The county triumph in turn paved pave tr.v. paved, pav·ing, paves 1. To cover with a pavement. 2. To cover uniformly, as if with pavement. 3. To be or compose the pavement of. the way for the state Science Fair, where they will join 17 other Colina students in competing. Jenna said she and Katie, both 12, decided to focus their work on how air pressure in soccer balls, basketballs and footballs affects play because the two are avid AVID Cardiology A clinical trial–Antiarrhythmics Versus Implantable Defibrillators that compared the effect of implantable defibrillators vs the best medical therapy–antiarrhythmics for survivors of MI or those with nonsustained ventricular tachycardia soccer players. ``We wanted to do some things to see how it would affect our game, but we tied other sports into it,'' Jenna said. The two began working in the fall on their project. They inflated balls to different pressures, then put them through a series of practical tests on the field and on the basketball court. The budding budding, type of grafting in which a plant bud is inserted under the bark of the stock (usually not more than a year old). It is best done when the bark will peel easily and the buds are mature, as in spring, late summer, or early autumn. scientists carefully logged the results and wrote up a research paper. In soccer, for example, they used the game's different techniques for kicking and ``heading'' - or hitting the ball with their heads - to see how the ball would act at each pressure level. Some of their findings weren't particularly startling star·tle v. star·tled, star·tling, star·tles v.tr. 1. To cause to make a quick involuntary movement or start. 2. To alarm, frighten, or surprise suddenly. See Synonyms at frighten. . For example, an underinflated ball in any sport doesn't go far, they said. But they admit they were surprised at how some of the overinflated balls behaved. For example, the overinflated basketball bounced higher than a properly filled one. But it also tended to bounce out Verb 1. bounce out - bounce a ball so that it becomes an out baseball, baseball game - a ball game played with a bat and ball between two teams of nine players; teams take turns at bat trying to score runs; "he played baseball in high school"; "there was a baseball of control, an indication that putting too much air in it made it lopsided lop·sid·ed adj. 1. Heavier, larger, or higher on one side than on the other. 2. Sagging or leaning to one side. 3. . And much the same held true for overinflated soccer balls, which made the game particularly painful, said Katie. ``If it's overinflated it bounces weird, and when you hit it, it hurts your head and when you kick it, it hurts, too,'' Katie said. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: At the state Science Fair today, Katie McCurdy, left , and Jenna Ainsworth, both 12, will describe their research on how air-pressure levels in balls affect sports. Dusty Locke/Special to the Daily News |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion