Science Fair Explores Variety of Topics

A variety of interesting projects were on display February 13 during the middle school’s annual science fair, an important tradition at The Harvey School, and an opportunity for students to show off their scientific knowledge and research skills in topics that truly interest them.

The event, which was held in the school’s study hall, included more than 100 entries from students in grades 6 through 8. As in previous years, a number of significant awards were handed out at the end of the evening. They included the overall winner award, which was given to Alec Petty, an eighth-grader. Alec submitted a project titled “Music to your Ears.”

Winners at the various grade levels included Kathryn Crum, who received the eighth-grade award for her project, “Music and Mood;” Armando Vazquez, who received the seventh-grade award for his project, “Effect of Colored Light on Plants;” and sixth-grade winner Katherine Powers for a project titled “Horse Colic.”

Students who received notable mention include Kim Bernstein, an eighth-grade student, for a project titled “Effects of Caffeine on the Behavior of Goldfish;” Ben Walant, a seventh-grader, for his project titled “Rube Goldberg;” and Emma Solomon, also an eighth-grader, for her project, “Flight.”

A recent article in Rolling Stone Magazine by its executive editor, Joe Levy, is what piqued the interest of Alec, an avid music lover, and regular reader of the magazine. Levy wanted to know if compressed music, when placed on a CD and imported to a computer’s hard drive, is of lesser quality than the music heard on vinyl records. Alec was also curious to find out more, and spent several weeks researching the topic.

Using four boys and four girls in the 11-14-year-old age group and equipped with an iMac computer, two CDs, access to iTunes, an iPod, Boise noise-canceling headphones, three different digital quality versions of “Vivaldi: The Four Seasons” and “Two Sides/Monsieur Valentine,” by Spoon, Alec set out to prove that the lower-quality compressed music should be clearly evident to the listener and as a result, they should be able to differentiate between the differently compressed songs. The higher the quality, the harder it should be for the listener to distinguish the differences.

Each subject listened to a classical song and a rock song three times. Each tune was originally created using three different types of compression technology. For the most part, said Alec, the results of the experiment and the hypothesis were proved correct. “Although many music lovers proclaim they can hear differences in sound quality in digitally compressed music, the volunteer had a more difficult time recognizing the difference in some formats,” stated Alec in his final paper.

Jane Petty, Alec’s mother, said he was “stunned” to learn of his overall win at the science fair. “He put so much work into this,” she said, “but I think that having an interest in the subject made it much easier for him.”