The Montessori School of Rome conducted its annual science fair last week at the Northwest Georgia Housing Authority gymnasium off Division Street in Rome.

The MSOR Science Fair is an annual event that includes projects produced by students in first through sixth grade.

The science fair featured basically whatever you would expect to find at such an event, including cool experiments and gadgets backed by science. One different thing about the MSOR science fair is that there are no winners ­— the event is more about the learning process that the students engage in while working on their projects.

Although the students do not get graded on their projects, they do get evaluated for the purpose of feedback.

The students usually form their experiments on concepts that they have learned and talked about in class.

For fourth through sixth graders, their experiments were chemistry-themed because that is what they have focused mostly on this year. The first through third-graders were opened to whatever experiments that their creative minds could come up with.

“The students look forward to it,” said Rob Hall, MSOR Student Support and School Development.

The students got to present their projects to the whole school, as well as the parents and guests that attend the science fair. They presented their projects to the whole school on the morning of the science fair and then to the parents and guests that evening.

Hall said that conducting the experiments seems to always be the students’ favorite part of the fair.

This year there was a wide variety of experiments and concepts featured. Experiments ranged from polymers to catapults to how water interacts with different things.

The MSOR science fair has featured some very extreme experiments throughout the years.

The project that stands out most to Hall was the hovercraft that a sixth grade student made last year that actually worked. The student used a leaf blower as the engine.

This seems like a project that would take a long time to finish, but the students usually only get between four and six weeks to work on their ideas. This year the students only had two weeks to complete the project because of other things going on.

For their experiments, students had to create a hypothesis and then test that hypothesis in some way. Students had to research their topics, create an experiment and put together a tri-board that included all of their information to put on display during the science fair.

Teachers mostly assist with background information and research for the students’ experiments.

“Teachers enjoy seeing the students use the principles of science in practice,” said Hall.

Morgan Clemones is a student at Pepperell High School and is interning at the Rome News- Tribune.