Science Fair Winner!

I have bad memories of science fair projects from my childhood. I was always trying to finish them last minute and the only time my project was actually good was when my Mom pretty much did most of it!

Science fair projects at our elementary school are optional. I'm pretty sure Matt never asked me to do one but Marlie has been asking for several years. I wanted her to be old enough to actually do it herself so I gave her the green light this year.

Her project was on Home Remedies for Molluscum Contagiosum. Was this my idea, yes. But Marlie, with a lot of help from Matt, did the project herself. We have had several issues with this virus so it sort of became a family project and it was actually pretty fun. Here's the background...Matt noticed these little white spots on his leg so I took him to the dermatologist and she said it was molluscum. It's a very contagious virus that most children get and can last 6 months to several years. There are no aches or pains, just these little white bumps. So she said she would remove the bumps by applying beetle juice but they blistered horribly! So bad they got infected and we ended up in the pediatrician's office. Poor kid missed several weeks of football, couldn't swim in the heat of the summer and almost missed going to camp!

The pediatrician said we should have just left the bumps alone. After doing some research there are some home remedies that can help speed up the process of the bumps going away. So that's what Marlie did. Matt had 3 new bumps on his leg after the initial fiasco so she tried multiple products on the bumps.

After a months worth of testing she concluded that tea tree oil works the best but you have to be careful to just apply it directly to the bump otherwise it irritates the skin around it. The other option that seemed to work was diluted apple cider vinegar (if you can stand the smell!). Coconut oil didn't work at all! 

Marlie did a fantastic job of planning out her board, writing up all the sections, choosing a color scheme, etc. I just had to help her glue it all on the board (because yes we were doing this late the day before it was due!). She ended up placing 2nd for all of 5th grade and 3rd overall for Fall Creek Elementary. She qualified for the District Science Fair and was able to present her project after waiting for 4 hours! She had lots of fun throughout the process and Matt was the best test subject.