Science fair answers riddles next week

Questions: Does washing your hands really work? Do electronic devices drain the brain?

Young people in Grades 4 through 12 will gather at the University of Victoria Sunday and Monday to answer burning scientific questions.

The 57th Vancouver Island Regional Science Fair will play host to about 135 projects by 170 budding scientists.

The young inquisitors aim to answer questions like: Does washing your hands really work? Do chestnuts actually repel spiders? Do electronic devices drain the brain?

Andrea Chan, president of the Society for the Advancement of Young Scientists, which organizes the fair, said some of the projects have a substantial level of technical sophistication.

Ann Makosinski, for example, developed an LED flashlight powered by the heat of a human hand. The device has since been patented. Another project had soap made from local seaweed that proved less reactive for people with allergies.

“Definitely, as this generation goes on they are coming up with things a lot more complicated,” Chan said.

On Monday, several of the projects will be chosen for the national science fair in Ottawa next month.

Chan said, regardless of the complexity or the difficulty of the problem to be solved, all the students must follow the scientific method: posing a question, formulating a hypothesis, testing it with experimentation and writing up the results.

“It can be really interesting to see what kind of answers they get for some of their hypotheses,” she said.

The 57th Vancouver Island Regional Science Fair is free and open to the public. It runs Sunday 1 to 4:30 p.m. and Monday 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Elliott Building at the University of Victoria.