By Mark Coddington
mark.coddington@theindependent.com

All were represented at the annual eighth-grade science meet on Thursday at College Park, and all were the subjects of inquisitive students' experiments, many of which tested the properties of everyday objects.

Twenty-six students from Blue Hill and Loup City public schools presented the results of their experiments using the scientific method at the meet, which was run by the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the Central Nebraska Area Health Education Center.

Many of the results impressed the judges.

"You should write this up in a page-and-a-half-, two-page letter and send it to Lysol," event judge Randy Blair said to Blue Hill student Cheyann Lovett, whose study concluded that Lysol kills more bacteria than Clorox. "You might get to be their spokesperson."

Down the hall, Cheyann's classmate, Jordyn Atwater, showed judges the results of her experiment to test whether birth order affected grade point average.

Jordyn said she thought of the idea based on her older brother's teasing that firstborn children are always smarter than their younger siblings.

And the result?

"He was right to a point," she said.

Her school's records showed that GPA decreased gradually with second-, third- and fourth-born children. But she said there could be several other contributing factors, such as participation in extracurricular activities.

Her teacher, Tim Streff, brought 23 of the school's 36 eighth-graders to the meet. The projects were a mandatory part of class, but entering them in the meet was optional.

Streff said the projects are invaluable in teaching students the scientific method by putting it into action.

"This doesn't just apply to science," he said. "Once you learn the scientific method, it's a great method to solve any problems you might have, now or in the future."

The meet also had another aspect that appealed to Streff: speakers from the health-related professions of mortuary science, physical therapy and emergency medical service.

Sarah Cunningham, executive director of the Central Nebraska Area Health Education Center, said her group tries to recruit speakers from outside the "ordinary" health professions.

"We always think about doctors, dentists, pharmacists and nursing," Cunningham said. "But what about mortuary science?"

Chris McCoy, a funeral director for Livingston-Sondermann Funeral Home in Grand Island, used a dummy to give a demonstration of his work.

He said events such as this are critical to letting young people know about the opportunities in his field one that might not intrinsically draw loads of interested students.

"There are a lot of kids that I don't know that they've even considered it," McCoy said. "I think it plants a seed as a career they might potentially be interested in."