McPherson Students Combine Math, Art and Language in Science Fair

Kristian Zehirev put his family and friends to work. The eighth-grader at McPherson Elementary School wanted to see what exercise would elevate a person’s heart rate the most.

He enlisted the help of four friends and family members, and tested the hypothesis that running would raise a person’s heart rate the most, followed by push-ups, sit-ups and a plank. 

Zehirev made his test subjects do each exercise for one minute with five-minute breaks in between. The subjects repeated this routine three times.

After using a monitor to measure each person’s heart rate during breaks, Zehirev proved his hypothesis. Running raised the heart rate the most, followed by push-ups, sit-ups and a plank. 

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The eighth-grader’s experiment was one of more than 200 entries in the McPherson Science Fair, held at the school on Thursday.

All students in grades 5-8 created projects, science teacher Michelle McSorley said.

“We try to get them to do something they actually care about,” she said. “They have to get approval for their experiments.”

Community members, Amundsen High School students, and college undergraduates acted as judges for the fair. Food scientist Jim Javenkoski and WBEZ Master Control Engineer Liz Bustamante also scored the entries.

Three students from each class will be declared as winners and the top three out of the whole fair will go to a regional competition at Truman College in January.

The science fair is a cross-curricular experience, McSorley said. The students use art to present their projects, math in graphing the results, and language with their conclusion paper.