Science Fair 2014

The Science Fair rolled around again at the end of January, and Christian eagerly signed up to participate. After last year's FIRST place finish, we were a little concerned about how he would react if he didn't win. We figured it would be a good lesson, and we encouraged him to just do his best. For a couple of weeks, we thought about what might be a fun project. I mentioned that I was interested in knowing if my homemade cleaners were actually doing anything, or if I needed to go back to the store-bought ones. We realized that my question would actually make a great project.

First, we chose the cleaners that we wanted to test:
-409
-Lysol
-Homemade cleaner (a mixture of baking soda, vinegar, dawn dish soap, and water)
-Water
-Nothing (control)

Then Jonathon and Christian created a grid on the counter and randomly assigned the cleaners to squares. Each cleaner was tested in 3 separate squares so that the results could be averaged.

Christian swabbed all of the squares and streaked the "before" side of the bacterial culture plate that Jonathon brought home from the lab. Then he sprayed all of the squares with the specified cleaners, wiped them down, and streaked the "after" side of the plate. Jonathon took the plates to the lab and let them grow in the incubator overnight.

The next day, Christian counted all of the colonies of bacteria on the plates and helped Jonathon plot the data. The results were very interesting. Lysol was the best at killing bacteria by quite a substantial margin. I was really hoping that the homemade cleaner would do well because I really like the idea of using less dangerous chemicals in my home. Unfortunately, the homemade cleaner was only better than plain water and quite a bit worse than the two store-bought cleaners. When all the data was graphed, I helped Christian create a display board from all the info we had gathered.

At the Science Fair, Christian had to give a presentation to three judges about his project. He practiced a few times the night before, and was feeling pretty confident. It definitely helped that Jonathon had explained everything in detail as they were working, so Christian understood exactly what they were doing and why. When his carpool ride dropped him off, he was proudly displaying his big, blue, FIRST-place ribbon. We definitely have a little scientist on our hands.

Congratulations to our Two-Time Champion!