Powell Middle School sixth grade students were bused into the Northwest College Nelson Performing Arts Center on Monday and Tuesday for the annual Genius Hour. A total of 125 students offered brief presentations on a wide variety of topics from science to art to sports. 

“Genius Hour is about students getting excited to learn about something they care about,” explained Necole Hanks, PMS science teacher. 

Hanks said the students began working on their projects back in October. They had some dedicated class time, but many of the projects required work on their own time. They were instructed to spend their time “discovering, creating, inventing, learning, and then communicating their passion projects with others.” 

“Students were asked to get creative and use resources that were repurposed and upcycled,” Hanks added.

Sixth grader Jim Black did a project on liquid sand, also known as a fluidized bed. Aaron Black, Jim’s dad, said he got the idea watching a YouTube video by science influencer Mark Rober. 

Jim created a piping system in a small tub of sand, and then used an air compressor to push air through the sand. When the air is on, the sand becomes almost like a soup. Students lined up to experience the strange sensation of pushing their hands through the soupy sand, which turned coarse and rigid when the air was turned off. 

Fluidized beds are used in applications like grain silos to make the grain flow smoothly out the drains. 

Charlie Eastman did a demonstration on a Rube-Goldberg machine, which is a chain reaction device. Earlier this year, Hanks did a unit on the concepts and said they are great tools for learning about energy transfers and transformations. 

Eastman said her dad, Ike, suggested she build such a contraption to perform a simple task. 

“The first thing that popped into my head was a stapler,” Charlie Eastman said. 

Using basic physics and engineering, Eastman’s machine stapled papers together with the push of a button. 

Stetson Lee did a project based on the same principles in which a ball fell down a series of paper towel rolls to ring a bell at the end. 

Knox Johnson created an art project, with 2,365 Skittles arranged in the likeness of Portugal soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. For his presentation, Johnson created a stop-motion video of the progress of gluing all those Skittles onto a piece of cardboard. 

Onyx Miller showed off his passion for giant pumpkins with a presentation on how to grow your own pumpkins. He showed a lot of knowledge on how to plant the pumpkins, maintain soil health and prune them. 

Dante Lauk presented a program on axolotls, which are a type of rare salamander. Lauk said he chose the project as part of a plan to convince his parents to let him get one of the amphibians as a pet. 

Orin Onstine and Keaton Bennett’s projects featured mouse trap cars, which are devices whose main source of locomotion is the spring action of a mouse trap. 

Piper Cousins created a diorama of Niagara Falls, and Jasper Ramsey featured the solar system, including video footage of the successful NASA Perseverance landing on Mars in February. 

Hanks was recognized with the Presidential Award for Math and Science Teaching in 2019, in part due to the annual Genius Hour event. 

“I love to watch students get excited about learning, creating, innovating, and sharing their knowledge,” Hanks said.