Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Scientific Thoughts

It's that time of year again!

The time to buy tri-fold boards and start feeding your plants chocolate milk. The time to clear the library shelves of anything that remotely relates to your topic. A time to renew your friendship with that lady down the street who majored in bio-chemical engineering.

It's the science fair. The time to crawl under a table and hide out until its all over.

I usually try to steer Cami towards picking a child of a scientist as her partner, minimizing my involvement to an occasional pizza splurge, but this year Cami insisted on having her best friend be her partner instead. Imagine the nerve!

Since sitting in the back seat wasn't going to be an option this year, I tried to steer them toward some kind of useful project, like "Which mopping method is most effective?" or "Which steel wool cleans ovens the best?".

When those ideas didn't fly I offered the idea, "What reaction will I get if I say 'Yes, M'am' after everything my mom says?" . I thought I had a winner there, but she merely rolled her eyes and said something about me being weird.

After ruling out compost heaps, time machines, and anything to do with mice a decision was finally made:

Purpose: What will happen to your teeth if you soak them in various liquids for unnaturally long periods of time?

Results:
Water: go ahead
Milk: slight discoloration, but otherwise okay
Lemonade: your teeth will shrink and discolor slightly
Diet Coke: is the devil's drink


Sorry to gross you out, but I am compelled by my sense of duty to inform you that if you were to take a swig of Diet Coke and swish it around in your mouth for the next 48 hours your teeth will look just like this:

By the way, the judge's loved it.




Stay tuned tomorrow for more on science fair projects...

11 comments:

K said...

Eeewww that's gross!

Congrats on winning though Cami!

Addie said...

Well, that was gross but interesting nonetheless. I have just one question though. Where did you get the teeth?

Lara said...

We have a good family friend who is a dentist. The whole project was done under his supervision (making sure the teeth were handled properly).

The Busby Family said...

Thats great they won! and really gross.

Deanne said...

What a great project! Although I have to say I liked your ideas slightly better (but only if they did the testing at my house).

Way to to Cami!...I guess I better lay of those diet cokes.

C and Co. said...

Who ever thought up Science Fair should be shot. I loved your ideas though. I may have to force one on Taylor next year.

Mirien said...

Evan did a similar project when he was in elementary school, but we made it too complicated. We weighed the teeth before and after, and the only scale we could find that would measure in grams was a jeweler's scale. Luckily we had connections with a jewelry store owner and an oral surgeon. I hope we didn't abuse our friendship by dragging in a pile of disgusting teeth to weigh--three times! Congrats to Cami and you--isn't it a great feeling to be done?!!

annalisa said...

congrats cami that you and megan did a science fair project that the judges liked!

Charlene said...

glad to hear where you got the teeth, and ewwwww. Congrats Cami!

Andie said...

Hmmm, seeing those pictures SHOULD make me think twice about my Diet Coke habit....but I'm gonna just pretend I never saw that!

Great idea for a science project, we may end up stealing that one some day.

The best science project I ever saw was by a third grader on what happens to your skin when you wear sunscreen and when you don't. She used hotdogs under a sun lamp to illustrate. Pretty gross, but I thought she was really clever to come up with hotdogs as the model.

Steve-Rosanna said...

Congrats Cami and Megan!

Glad to say that I have almost kicked my Diet Coke habit-although caffeine-free Diet Mountain Dew has replaced it in my daily dietary mix. Probably still not good for me, but seemingly better than Diet Coke.

Love, Grandpa-Grandma

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