Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette Hancock’s Barkell Elementary School places emphasis on science and engineering with their Family Science Night, Showcase of Excellence, and Fifth Grade Science Fair. Here, Joan Chadde of the Michigan Tech helps young students understand scientific concepts using simple experiments.

HANCOCK — Barkell Elementary School conducted its annual Showcase of Excellence last Thursday, and one of its highlights was the annual Fifth Grade Science Fair, which was started 15 years ago by Dan Pertile, the fifth grade science teacher.

Over the years, the level and sophistication of the science projects has steadily improved, owing to advancements in the science world itself.

Pertile also feels that the reason for the improvement is that, over time, students have had access to improved resources, mainly the internet, as well as better facilities in which to work.

Those facilities include the Copper Country Intermediate School District, as well as Michigan Technological University, which offer and provide materials and resources. Pertile believes that makes it much easier for the teachers and the kids.

Pertile said the science projects are based on the Scientific Method, which consists of the students coming up with an interesting question, developing a procedure to test a theory, and then see if they can arrive at a solution or an answer.

In addition to the Scientific Method, Pertile is starting to introduce engineering concepts to the projects.

“We’re starting to steer in towards the engineering design, which is new,” he said. “It’s the same concept as the Scientific Method, but it’s taking what you’ve created and making it better.”

The engineering concept helps to broaden the scope of the project, said Pertile.

“How can we apply it? What other applications can we do with it?,” he said. “So, we’re trying to work into engineering design, but still, there’s a lot of the scientific method involved in what we do here, developing and posing a good question that they’re interested in, and developing a procedure to test that. (They can then) see if they can come up with a solution or answers to that question.”