NORTHFIELD — Pioneer Valley Regional School was transformed into a science wonderland Thursday night.

It was 6 p.m. and students were busily setting up their tri-fold poster boards in the main hallway, the cafeteria and numerous other locations within the school in preparation for science night from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Previously coined Sustainability Night for the past four years, Penney Betsold and six other science teachers decided it was time to change the theme because environmental stewardship proved to be a difficult topic for students enrolled in classes like physics and anatomy and physiology to produce a project within that constraint.

“This is an opportunity for the students to share what they’ve learned,” she said. “We asked all the students to make a display about sustainability — as it is one of our core values — and some classes had a stronger connection with that than others. This year, we made it more accessible to all science classes.”  

Science Night drew more than 100 attendees who were eager to see a variety of student-made projects ranging from homemade lotion and pure maple syrup to anatomical inspired games and a 3-D printout of a technical house drawing. Students from grades 7 to 12 presented projects around the topics they have been learning about in science this past year.

While sitting on a stool in the cafeteria, eighth-grader Christopher Lacoy dipped a wooden skewer stick in mineral oil and pierced a hole straight through a balloon. He said the rubber is lax on the top and bottom, with more force pulling on the sides, which allowed the sharp object to pierce the balloon without it popping.

Natalie Foster worked with two fellow eighth-graders, Sydney Unaitis and Ella Potee, to create bath products, including body scrubs and lotion and a bath bomb as part of the science unit about everyday products related to chemistry. Foster described bath bombs as a compact ball of various ingredients that slowly foams and dissipates when wet.

“Bath bombs were invented in 1989 by the United Kingdom cosmetic company called Lush,” she said. “They are a healthy alternative to bubble bath because that’s harmful to skin.”

In the advanced placement chemistry room, 11th-grade student Gabriel LaRocque was presenting a highly complex project in which he measured the acidity of beverages as part of the titration unit. He started with an acidic solution like orange juice, then added an indicator, which presented itself as different color to signify a different pH level, and then added a base solution to the mixture and was able to easily measure the acid concentration in the juice.

“This process is used by the FDA to measure the amount of acid in certain drinks,” he said.  

Materials Technology and Engineering Design teacher John Passiglia attracted a constant crowd in his room as he spoke about his students’ success with a 3-D printing machine. He said the students pick an image from the Internet and can load it into one of three image editing programs and with a click of a button and the swipe of a laser reflected off numerous mirrors, the image is carved onto a wooden or plastic surface.

The most innovative projects were perhaps in the classroom of Nicole Pullen, who wanted to guide her students rather than restricting them by allowing them to create a project in any presentation format they wanted within the topic units that were covered in class prior to the event.

“There’s heart in this room. Literally, there’s a heart in this room,” she said while pointing to a full-sized heart lying in a silver tray.

Her students were a mix of 11th- and 12th-graders who designed a variety of projects from nesting dolls used to explain all the aspects of the body system, a children’s book about the development of an endochondral bone and board games similar to Operation and Pokemon to help the students memorize body tissues in a creative format.

“It’s really cool to see all the things students are doing in other science classes,” said senior Kayla Hubbard.