How does screen time affect a person’s mood? How can fungi break down plastic to benefit the environment? Does listening to Taylor Swift fall in line with the Mozart effect? 

The Flathead County Fairground’s Trade Center was packed with dozens of tri-fold boards Thursday morning, each asking — and attempting to answer — a question rooted in the scientific method.  

Every year, the Flathead County Science Fair brings third grade to 12th grade students from across the valley to show off their hard work. Each student gets to explore a topic of their choice, using the scientific method to perform experiments or the engineering design process to design prototypes and analyze data.  

Emma Colby, a freshman at Flathead High School, and her partner Beckett Cummings, took on a challenging concept: the effects of Pleurotus ostreatus, a fungus, on certain types of plastics.  

“If this would’ve worked, we could have found a more sustainable way to use plastics,” Colby said.  

The project exposed two types of plastic to fungal mushroom enzymes by growing mushroom spores around the plastics to attempt to break them down. Originally, Colby and Cummings hypothesized that high-density polyethylene plastic would degrade the most.  

But the major finding turned out to be that the fungi had little effect on breaking down the plastics, or that it takes more time for the plastic to start decomposing.  

“That’s how science works,” Colby said. “You may not get the results you want or thought you’d get, but it’s still results. You still get good data.”  

Becoming comfortable with the scientific process is an important aspect of the science fair. Further, being able to explain the project to various judges is a big part of the show as well.  

“We have some young, bright minds coming up,” said judge Roger Marsonette, a former engineer and longtime judge for the Flathead County Science Fair.  

This year is Marsonette’s 16th year judging the competition. It’s refreshing, he said, to see young people interested in science. It’s something he looks forward to every year.  

Some interest for projects came from real world experiences. Julia Neibauer, a 12-year-old home school student, spends a lot of time tending to her family’s bees. Over the years, Neibauer started to realize that the population of bees dwindled in the wintertime.  

“My family’s bees were dying every year, and I wanted to fix it,” Neibauer said, presenting her project while wearing a beekeeper's hat.  

Neibauer’s project found that winterizing a beehive using foam, rather than the standard insulating plastic normally used, is more effective for bee survival in the wintertime.  

Some projects took a more creative approach. Effie Sullivan, a fifth grader from Bigfork, was inspired by the Mozart effect for her project. The theory follows that listening to the music of Mozart may boost intelligence.  

Sullivan analyzed the Mozart effect using Taylor Swift’s music. And the results? Listening to Taylor Swift actually does make you smarter, she said, using a scientific process that looked at test scores compared to listening habits.  

“I was really interested in this concept, so I thought I’d try it out with one of my favorite artists,” she said.  

For Sue Corrigan, science fair judge and longtime educator, that is what it’s all about.  

“I love finding out what excites these kids about science and encouraging them to stick with it,” Corrigan said. “I feel like my job as a judge is to keep that excitement.”  

This year was 9-year-old Griffie Schreiner’s first year competing in the science fair. She looks forward to coming back next year and into the future.  

Her project, inspired by her father, was a look at ancient techniques of tanning hides. She manned her project holding a fox hide that she tanned herself with her dad.  

“I started really watching [my dad] hunt and I was just so inspired,” Schreiner said. “I had no idea I could find science in it, but we did and it's so cool.”  

Science is at the forefront of the third grader’s interests. She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up.  

For retired science teacher and judge Cindy Roberts, kids gain knowledge, experience and drive by participating in the science fair. 

“It’s really cool,” Roberts said. “And I just hope they will continue to want to take science.”  

Reporter Kate Heston may be reached at 758-4459 or [email protected]. 

    Braden Rathke, a fourth-grader at Edgerton Elementary School, demonstrates his project on Exploring Line-Following Technology of Pathfinder Robots to judge Sue Corrigan at the Flathead County Science Fair on Thursday, March 6. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Griffie Schreiner, a third-grader at Edgerton Elementary School, describes her project on The Ancient Art of Hide Tanning to a judge at the Flathead County Science Fair on Thursday, March 6. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Effie Sullivan, a fifth-grader at Bigfork, describes her project titled Testing Taylor Swift's Music on Mental Performance to a judge at the Flathead County Science Fair on Thursday, March 6. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider