Science Night emphasizes the profit of the students' science projects

Award -winning scientific projects by Calaveras County students became the museum during the science night, a new event that took place on May 7th at the Angels Camp Museum.

Presented by the museum in cooperation with the Calaveras County Office of Education (CCOE) and the CCOE Steam (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) served the event to honor the winners of the Calaveras County Science Fair winner of the Albert Michelson Science Award 2025.

The award, inspired by Michelson, a Nobel laureate who lived in Murphys during his childhood in the 1850s, recognizes excellent achievements in physical, life and behavioral sciences and mathematics/computer science.

Michelson, who was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, was best known for his early studies on the speed of light.

His connection to Calaveras County led to the creation of the exhibition “Albert Michelson: Illumination The Universe”, which was opened last year at the Angels Camp Museum. The co-directors of the exhibition project were volunteers Doug Modlin and Sunil Mehrotra.

In addition to the presentation of award -winning student projects, the Science Night included practical activities to explore science, which Modlin, Mehrotra and Justin Miller, a fourth grade teacher at Mark Twain Elementary School.

Around 60 people took part in the event and began introducing the museum's executive director, Martin Huberty. Debbie Strand, coordinator for communication and student events for the Calaveras County Office of Education; And Modlin, who is also a founding member of the CCOE Steam Advisory Council.

After these introductions, 7th grade Michelle French, the winner of the main prize in the district's science fair, discussed the “Fluoride controversy” about her project.

French, whose father is a pediatric dentist, told the participants that many people believe that fluoride is poisonous.

“In fact, fluoride is not toxic in a certain dose,” she said. “Since many people like to spread misinformation on social media, they tend to forget that everything and everything can be poisonous. What I can do with everything and everything is that there could be too much oxygen in the air and that they would not be able to breathe.”

In their experiments, French showed that an eggshell that is covered with a fluid -based toothpaste is more resistant to decay than an uncoated egg shell.

Another winning project was Robby Dove's 11-year project entitled “Who can see the difference between real and ai-generated images?”

Dove, a fifth grader at the Albert Michelson Elementary School, informed the company that, in order to create his project, he collected examples of real and artificial intelligence generated photographs and carried out various internet research.

Dove wrote in the analysis and results department of his project: “The generation of children can better select AI photos. The generation of grandparents is the worst of identifying them. However, no group has all correctly. Everyone has to fight with some of the photos.

Dove's project won first place in the “Best Mathematics and Computer Science Project” category of the County Science Fair.

Another winner of first place on the County Science Fair was Logan Markus, a 4th grade student at Albert Michelson Elementary. He had the No. 1 project in the category “Best Behavioral and Cognitive Science”.

Markus explained his approach to his project: “Are yawn contagious?”

“Basically, I carried out four experiments in different age groups and marked them on paper and put them in a cake,” he said.

In his conclusion, Markus wrote: “I learned that yawn is not fully contagious. If you don't think of yawn,” catch “or do not copy the yawn or copy it, but if you think you think, you will rather yaw if you yawn.

For the other winners of the County Science Fair, the 6th grade Emalie Beahnin and Ceclia Degennaro from the Mountain Oaks School with their project “Electrolytes”, which was presented at Science Night.

The event also showed displays from the second winner Eliot Minkler, a fourth grade student on Albert Michelson Elementary School, with his project: “The mucus mucosa protects the stomach from all food” and the winner of third place Noah Laker, a Haselfischer elementary school 5.

Modlin mentioned that the four “Best of” category award winners from the Science Fair also received the Albert Michelson Science Fair Award medals and a cash prize.

The gold medalists of first place each received 250 US dollars, second silver medalists received $ 100, and bronze medalists in third place received 50 US dollars.

The Calaveras County Steam Advisory Council collects the money for these awards and donates it to CCOE. The purpose of the awards is to increase participation in the district science fair and to help the costs of the students Science Fair projects and the costs for those who participate fairly in California State.

The event continued with the Interactive Science Exploration Stations, which Mehrota referred to as “learning centers”.

Mehrota presented a demonstration about photosynthesis, while Modlin presented a presentation about Michelson's interferometer, which mixed and controls light waves to enable more studies. Third, Miller led groups on a “Rainbow Challenge” reweg with spectroscopy.

Miller shared details about his interactive presentation.

“So, light is made from a whole range of different colors, even though we see it as white,” he said.

“We can see through something like this glasses to see which colors it projects. And from it we can see what this element is.”

In his demonstration, which he called “Light Life”, Mehrota demonstrated the importance of light and noticed that there would be no oxygen without light.

Modlin shared his general thoughts about the purpose of the night in the museum.

“In Science Night in the museum it is about arousing curiosity, celebrating performance and showing the students, their parents, their teachers and our community that their ideas have the power to change the world,” he said.

Part of the Science Night was also the presentation of a flower vase to make their contributions to the event.

Modlin commented on the importance of these contributions.

“Special thanks go to everyone at CCOE who supported us, and especially with Debbie Strand, without whom all of this would not have happened this evening,” he said.

When asked about her work, including her participation in the Science Night, Beach found that she organized all nationwide student events in her role as coordinator for student events, including the Calaveras County Science Fair and dinner with a scientist.

Beach explained that Modlin and Mehrotra led the foundation of the CCOE Steam Advisory Council through these two events.

“The goal of the Steam Advisory Council from CCOE is to bring steam resources to our students,” she said. “We have also found the need to take part in incentive (for) students at the science fair. This is the time of Albert Michelson Science Fair Awards and cash prices.

“From there, the movement continued to the cooperation of the Albert Michelson exhibition. There is a panel in the exhibition in which our County (Science) and Albert Michelson Science Fair Awards act. A medal that the students deserve is also on display.”

Beach added that the creation of Science Night in the museum developed as an expansion of the County Science Fair.

“It became an expansion of County Science Fair by inviting the Albert Michelson Science Fair Awards winners to issue their projects at the event,” she said. “As soon as the concept of the event was born, it was time to find out all logistics, and there I used what I learned to coordinate all nationwide events (at night).

“In my modest opinion, the event was a hit success and I would like to see whether we can do this every year in the future.”