Caption: The 8th graders compete on their boats to reach the other side of the pool. [provided by PACA yearbook staff 2025]
by Isabella Kim
The PACA Science Fair and Art Show is a very anticipated event by all parents, who get to see what their kids have been working on during their school year in their science and art classes.
This year’s science fair and art show took place on the 26th of April, with activities in the Maker Space room, the gym, swimming pool area and elementary classrooms on campus. During the event, students got to display and present their projects and knowledge they learned in fun and creative ways.
The middle school classes’ projects, taught by Susie Zuercher, were quite the highlight for middle school students, who worked on two different projects. The 6th, 7th and 8th grade classes got to compete with each other and show off how their knowledge could be put to use.
According to Mrs. Zuercher, the science teacher for middle school, the middle school students had to research and build their brojects with specific limitations to the competition she had set.
The sixth graders, with 2025 being their first middle school science fair, worked on dyes, made t-shirts, researched the scientific process behind dyeing. They also studied and built crash cars out of legos, a piece of paper and tape, testing them out with the dummy being an egg.
Seventh graders got to build prosthetic legs out of recyclable materials and they also studied composting. And the eighth graders studied different methods of cleaning up oil spills and were challenged to build cardboard boats that could hold two people when on water.
“We tested those on the day of the science fair and that was a lot of fun,” said Zuercher.
These competitions gave learning a fun twist and encouraged students to give their best.
The Art show was organized by Mr. Guilherme Lima, who teaches art to all the grades at PACA. It took place in the Art Room and two connected areas to that room. By creating strategic barriers and walking pathways from his room to the art kiosk and back around the space in the breezeway, he was able to display organized groups of artwork from each grade level.
“There was a lot of artwork to see,” said Lima.
Lima explained that each student got to choose two to three projects that they had worked on during the school year to display in the Art Show. Throughout the school year, students practice a number of art techniques and styles, which they get to show to their parents, teachers and other students.
Overall, students spent two months working towards the science fair, preparing boards, researching and building their projects. For the art show, students could pick any two projects that they had worked on along the year, so preparations lied on setting up the boards and preparing the display rooms.
A lot of work, from both students and teachers, went into preparing and presenting the projects shown in the science fair and in the art show. Many teachers lent their class time in order to help students work on their projects, making sure students had enough time to develop and better prepare for the science fair.
