Belleville student going to Canada-Wide Science Fair

BELLEVILLE, ON (01/05/12) Katie Rampp demonstrating the experiment used for her science fair project, Can You Hear Me? Photo by Kristen Oelschlagel.By Kristen Oelschlagel

 By Kristen Oelschlagel

A local student has combined her passion for science and hockey into an award winning science fair project.

Katie Rampp, a Grade 8 student at Georges Vanier Catholic School, will be representing the Quinte Region after placing first at the Quinte Regional Science Fair on March 31. Her project, Can You Hear Me?, won first place in her category Life Sciences for Grade 8.

“I wanted to find out which headphones block out ambient, or background, noise most effectively,” Rampp said.

Using four different brands of headphones, Dr. Dre, Skullcandy, Sony and JetBlue airplane headphones, Rampp got 20 people to listen with each headphone set for one minute. For the first 30 seconds she played music with background sound and for the remaining 30 seconds there was just background sound.

After the experiment was complete, the participants filled out a survey. She found that Dr. Dre headphones were the most effective at blocking out background noise while JetBlue airplane headphones were the least effective.

Rampp got the idea for the project from her love of hockey, playing as a goalie on the Belleville Bulls Junior AE Minor Bantam team.

“I need to focus before the game so I listen to music. If there’s too much background noise and I can hear it over my music I can’t focus, so I wanted to see what headphones are best,” she said.

Rampp has competed in the science fair since Grade 4 but said she took a break from it last year so she was really looking forward to competing again this year.

“It was amazing. It was really, really organized.”

Rampp said she was shocked when her mother, Susan Rampp, told her that they announced her project got first.

“I thought I was out of the running when I didn’t win overall for the grade so I was playing a game on my iPod and wasn’t really listening.”

Susan said she’s very proud of her daughter after all of the work she has put into science fairs over the years.

“She was always working diligently on her project. She would be thinking of her projects way in advance every year. The projects always connected to a need that she sees,” she said.

Rampp will be going to the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, P.E.I. to compete from May 12 to 19. Susan said it’s a great opportunity for her to be able to see not only projects from across the country, but also the city of Charlottetown.

Rampp’s teacher, Alana McGilly, said the school has been doing the science fair for 10 years but this is the first time a student has gone on to compete in the Canada-wide competition.

“I was absolutely ecstatic and I was so proud of Katie’s achievements in science.”

McGilly said she had no doubt that Katie would go on to the Canada-Wide Science Fair.

“The thing about Katie is that she has lots of initiative, she came up with the topic on her own, she wanted to challenge herself and do something a little different,” said McGilly.

“When I saw the work that went into interviewing all of her candidates, the process was excellent. The scientific process was totally thorough and when you see the complete presentation, the display and the technology she used, it was excellent. Level four plus work,” McGilly said.

Rampp is also a member of the first ever student council at Georges Vanier. To her teachers she is recognized as a well-rounded, well-spoken and bright student who is passionate about science. Rampp’s classmates were just as proud of her.

“They went nuts. They thought it was unbelievable that someone from our little school, Georges Vanier in Belleville, is going to P.E.I. and representing for the Canada competition,” McGilly said.

Next year, Rampp will be going to school in the United States on a hockey scholarship but said if she does get the opportunity to do a science fair again she would like to do more about sports psychology. One day she is hoping to become a sports psychologist.