The regional competition will take place next Saturday, February 20, but not as usual in the Sparkasse Herford, but virtually on the Internet (see box). Here we present the projects.
The topics of your research are often related to current events or discussions. For example, Nico Scharenberg (grade EF) from the Heepen high school asked himself whether wearing everyday masks, as it suddenly became mandatory after the summer holidays last year, has an effect on the oxygen saturation in the blood. To do this, he first had to develop a hygiene concept and have it approved by the school management so that he could examine his classmates both with and without a mask. He monitored a total of 13 test persons with a saturation meter, which determines measured values through the skin. He could not determine an increased accumulation of CO2 in the blood.
A research group from the Marienschule also dealt with the corona pandemic and the question of whether the CO2 content in the room air is also a good indicator for the aerosol content. After all, these aerosols are blamed for the transmission of coronaviruses. Georg Sudian, Paul Bikowski and Nick Buschkamp (all born in Q2) developed a measuring device with which they could determine the carbon dioxide (CO2) content and the concentration of fine dust particles at the same time. They let their test subjects breathe into this measuring device with and without everyday masks. They found that without a mask, the two values rose evenly. When wearing a mask, however, they observed a significantly smaller increase in the fine dust concentration. The three students come to the conclusion that the CO2 content in the room air alone is not a suitable indicator of the risk of infection.
Competition without a public
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The competition “Jugend forscht / Pupils experiment” will only take place online this year. The usual presentation for the interested public on the afternoon of the competition day falls victim to the Corona requirements. The young researchers present their project to the respective expert jury at a specified date in a video conference. As with the face-to-face competition, the project presentation is followed by a technical discussion with the jury about the project. So that the young researchers can practice using the video conference tool and their online presentation, competition director Dr. Gudrun Meya set up a so-called “exercise room” in the video conference program for each research project. In addition, the office of Jugend forscht in Hamburg has provided handouts and a training video for using the video conference tool and for online presentation nationwide. In the online competition, as in the normal face-to-face competition, the project presentations in front of the expert jury will take place in camera. In addition to the young researchers, their relatives and the project supervisors, guests can be invited to a limited extent.
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Fine dust was also the subject of investigation by Alina Häußler and Verena Rusu (both year EF) from the Ceciliengymnasium. Using radish plants, they determined the effects of soot particles and brake disc wear on the growth of the plants. The trigger for her research was the finding that the human body reacts to fine dust in the air. This gave rise to the question of how these particles affect plants. For their project, they used toothbrushes to collect samples from exhaust pipes and brake discs. Plants were then grown twice under controlled conditions and each watered with differently concentrated solutions of the two fine dust samples. For evaluation, they determined the weight and length of the plants. They found that concentrated soot solution actually had an effect similar to that of plant fertilizers.
Cara Mühlpfordt and Iuzefa Zotova (both year Q2) from the Marienschule are already “old hands” in the competition. Last year they were already working in the field of physics with so-called neodymium magnetic balls. This time they continued their project and investigated how a certain number of balls behave on a glass plate: Which random arrangements arise with a certain number of balls? At the same time, they have again supplemented their experiment with a Monte Carlo simulation on the computer to explain the process of energy optimization during the self-assembly of the magnets.
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