Science Fair Project

Since I told you all about Olivia's Science Fair project last year, I thought it only fair to show Sydney's entry this year.  Since she's in third grade now, this is a REQUIREMENT and is graded (which is a bit much, if you ask me, but moving on....)

Since Poppy is a scientist, I suggested she ask him for input since I avoided science in every way possible and quite frankly have no interest in it whatsoever.

They came up with the idea of a green roof.

Being in real estate and a LEED AP, I loved the idea (even if it was "science").

First, they made a box - it has two sides separated by a board inside to make two "rooms"

One side had sod on top, the other side had shingles.

 Holes were drilled into the rooms and meat thermometers placed in the holes to measure the temp.

The middle thermometer read the air temp (it was from Brian's shop - can you tell he's a car geek?)

Sydney measured all three temps every half hour,  for five hours. It was a long day.

The difference in the temperatures was actually quite amazing.

The other side of the box had holes drilled with tubing attached to measure the amount of run off from each roof type.

The glass beaker measured the amount of "Rain" (aka, Poppy standing over the box watering it with a hose with a special sprinkler attached so each side got an equal amount of water).

Look at the difference - with a half inch of rain, the green roof has 4 ounces of run off.  The shingle side had 24 ounces of run off. 

And then it was time to make her poster - it speaks for itself....

Hypothesis #1 

How she made her project

A little ditty about green roofs

Hypothesis #2

It was REALLY hard not to take over the project (i'm a tad competitive, ahem), but she did such a great job with only minimal help from me (and a lot of help from Poppy - he's was the idea man, the builder and the overseer of this project).

If she doesn't win, I fear there will be severe temper tantrums in our future. 

Judging is tomorrow and Parent's Night is Thursday - wish her luck!!