According to young scientests Kylie Lucier and Chance Bridgewater, chewing gum and listening to music makes a person smarter and helps them concentrate. These were two conclusions found at a recent St. Regis science fair. The fair involved middle and high school students who competed for bronze, silver, and gold medals. Gold medalists go on to compete at the state science fair, held at the University of Montana on March 27-28.

Students came up with a hypothesis, conducted various forms of research and tests and followed with a conclusion based on their results. Display boards with charts and data filled the St. Regis cafeteria March 7 as judges wandered through the tables and interviewed students about their findings. The event is organized by science teacher, Chris West.

Lucier and Bridgewater both won silver for their astute findings. “Hamster Breeding” done by Zoey Antos and Macy Hill, also won silver. Their hypothesis stated that properly acclimated Syrian and Short-Haired hamsters will breed. Their conclusion was that if not given enough time to get used to each other, different types of hamsters will not breed. Sadly, one of their subjects, the male hamster, died from a brain tumor during the experiment.

Fifth grader and previous gold winner, Tia Hendrick won gold again with “Growing Plants in Different Lights”. She grew cilantro under different colored lights and found the seeds sprouted first under red and blue lights, and grew the fastest under red. Hendrick said she loves science and plans on pursuing a career in the field, possibly in medicine.

Another winner from last year, Brooke Filek, won silver this year for her experiment as to whether smell affect taste.

“My hypothesis was incorrect, your scent does not affect your taste,” her conclusion read. “In my graph it show that all of my test subjects could taste the food even after they smelled the food while eating it.”

Ben, a fifth grader received gold for “Identifying minerals in vinegar”, and sixth grader, Aaron Stansfield also received gold after asking the question, “does the size of Alka-Seltzer effect the amount of gas created?” The answer is, if you put a whole tablet of Alka-Seltzer in water then it will produce the most gas.

Fellow fifth-grade classmate, Gracie also won silver when she discovered that lemons can make electricity. While fourth-graders, Jonah Lowry and Dillon Thomas won silver when they concluded that girls are better drivers than boys.

During the Tuesday afternoon presentation, the 7-12 awards had a problem and had to be postponed until breakfast on Wednesday morning. The grand prize trophy went to sophomore, Madison Kelly. Gold went to Ian Farris, Kenzie Stortz, Bailee Pruitt, Makaela Kelly, Adam Ball, and Rylie Burnham. Silver was awarded to Grace Shope, Kylee Thompson, Makynna Lowry, Andy Elshaug, Chloe Cielke, Sunny Shope, Breezy Shope, Taylor Hurd, Karmen Alexander, Carter Jasper, Kiya Taylor, and Keanan Taylor.

Bronze winners include Josh Drobny, Brock Cantrell Field, Broc Wright, Ann Marie Petty, Nic Day, Zech Flandreau, Jakob Lohman, Zane Antos, Grace King, Andrew Sanford, Abby Lowry, Sam Green, Skyler Christensen, Charles Anderson, Tanner Day, and William Lowry.