Barbara Lawlor, Gilpin County.  Young Eagles are inquisitive and have so many questions. For the past month they have been seeking answers to their queries, trying to prove or disprove their hypothesis using the scientific method.

What rots first, a banana or a tomato?

How many cinder blocks can a hardboiled egg hold?

How long will it take a nail to rust in water?

How much glucose is there in candy corn, hot tamales?

Gilpin Elementary and Middle School students put their science project displays and presented the outcomes to parents, fellow students and judges last Thursday. The young scientists filled the elementary school gym with their carefully researched projects and 38 of them were chosen for awards.

Sharon Lutes, the Gilpin Science Fair Coordinator says that ins tread of trying to break ties, all winners honored even if they have the same number of judge’s votes. “We use a rubric that totals 16 if all categories of the science project and the presentation show knowledge of the Scientific Method and the date is displayed neatly and all math done correctly.”

Kindergarten: 1. Keira Ferrante, 2. Ellianah Raynes, 3. Jack Fisher

First Grade: 1. Ashyr Trumble 2. Jeff Hanssen, Ivy Kolz, Samuel Rousseau, 2. Isaac Murphy

Second Grade: 1. Kylah Ganz, Ben Bushey, Paul Ferrante, Adele Fisher and Lola Keller, 2. Zia Lucero and Victoria Turner, 3. Mason Sechler

Third Grade: 1. Annabelle Aloel, 2. Brianna Crawford Eliza Westbrook, 3. Samantha Kapke and Faith Ramsey

Fourth Grade: 1. Jordan Hobson-Knoll, Aucklynn, Sacco and Roland Keller, 2. Lynda Icenogle, 3. Dusty LeBeau

Middle School: 1. Claire Diekman and Ashley Parkhurst, 2. Caleb Murphy, 3. Sarah Trujillo.

Gran Prize winners:

Elementary School, Aucklynn Sacco; Middle School, Ashley Parkhurst.

Aucklynn Sacco says she became interested in chemistry and wanted a project that involved chemistry. With Halloween coming up she decided to find out how much glucose was contained in her favorite candies: Skittles, Nerds, Candy Corn, Hot Tamales, gobstoppers and M&Ms.

After chopping the candy into small pieces, she then ground it up. She labels plastic cups and put a spatula scoop of ground candy intno it, for each kind of candy.  She then dropped three droppers full of hot water and let it dissolve. She came up with a hypothesis about which candy had the most glucose.

To prove her hypothesis, she put 25 drops of the solution in a test tube and added 5 drops of Benedict’s solution to the test tube. After putting the test tubes in boiling water, she recorded the colors to determine the amount of glucose in each tube and found that Candy Corn has the most, with 4 percent glucose.

Ashley Parkhurst’s project was about thirsty plants. Using bean seeds placed in planters she added various liquids, milk, lemonade, vitamin water, vinegar, coke and water.

She set up the project on Oct. 12 and recorded the progress of each of the beans. By November 1, the bean in the water had sprouted to about a foot high, the bean in the vitamin water was about six inches, the bean in the milk was moldy and the lemonade, coke and vinegar were not showing any sign of emerging.

Ashley concluded that good old water is the best way to irrigate plants.

To answer previous questions, a banana rots before a tomato does, a hardboiled egg can hold up 2 cinder blocks and a nail in water will rust in five days.