This year marks the first time that 8th graders do not have to create a project for Westminster Science Fair; instead, all students will now participate in the new dragsters project.

Physical Science teacher Katie Healan says the dragsters project will require students to engineer a race car. “There are a lot of steps to it. It starts out with design, and everybody starts out with the same piece of wood, same shape . . . and bases a design [and] picks it.” 

After racing the cars, students will then create a project related to force and motion. Physical Science teacher Alison Aitken says 8th graders will learn physics topics and use that knowledge during the project. “So we’re talking about speed, velocity, and acceleration, and you’re going to employ all of those skills that you’ve learned when you’re analyzing how your car traveled down the track,” she says.

The dragsters project replaces a long-standing tradition at Westminster. The science fair required all 8th grade students to work in groups to create their own project and complete work outside of class.

After completing their trifolds, the 8th grade would then host a grade-wide science fair to display their work. A set number of students would then continue on to the regional fair and even the state fair. 

The transition from the science fair to the dragsters project was unrelated to the performance of the fair. Aitken cites scheduling conflicts as a primary factor in the decision as well as the desire to try something new. “Part of the reasoning behind the switch was one, to try something different,” she says. “Two, our schedule and the APS [Atlanta Public Schools] schedule have diverged a bit, so . . . making the deadlines for the Science Fair [was] really challenging for us to meet.” 

Westminster is a part of the APS region for science fair groupings, requiring students to pass through the regional competition in order to be able to compete at the state level according to region administrators. 

Healan says that the department tried to find ways around the strictly enforced rules but emerged unsuccessful. “We tried to . . . see if we could just go to state without [going to the regional fair], or to see if we could go to Fulton County instead of Atlanta Public Schools, but [the administrators] are very rigid with their rules,” she says.

Aitken says the Science Department was united in making the change. “We felt, at this point, that it was worth trying something different. So it’s not like this was a decision that was made for us. This is a decision that we fully had part in.”

However, the project change isn’t locked in for future years and is subject to change. Aitken says the Department will evaluate the dragsters project’s effectiveness this year before making any long-term commitments. “At the end of this year, we’ll look at that [the dragsters] project and decide if that’s something we’re going to keep doing or if we’re going to go back to Science Fair or if we’re going to look for something different,” she says.