OKLAHOMA—The John Amos Field House gymnasium, normally filled with sports enthusiasts, was instead filled this morning with Imperial Academy students presenting scientific principles that had sparked their curiosity at the school’s Science Fair. Local students presented live, hands-on experiments at tables in the gymnasium, while online students set up cameras and equipment in their homes to demonstrate their experiments.

The local observers, who included students, parents and teachers, rotated through the gym from table to table, learning about bioluminescent bacteria, electricity conducting lemons, glowing slime, the five-second-rule myth and more. Online students, who were logged into video-conference classrooms, learned about copper plating, amounts of probiotics in different yogurt brands, silver-cleaning chemical reactions, flammable fuels, stress-reducing music, and oscillating chemical reactions.

At one table, sophomore Izabela Henderson showed onlookers how to hold fire without being burned. Junior Sydney Kaleho stepped up to the challenge, immersing her hand in a dish of soapy water, filled with butane. Henderson then took a lighter and lit Kaleho’s hand on fire.

“Hot,” Kaleho said, waving her hand around to extinguish the flame. “If you weren’t awake, you’re awake now.” A few other students also wanted to try. Flames licked at their skin, and although they felt heat, it didn’t burn them.

“Do you want your hand set on fire?” one observer called out to Physical Education instructor Rishanna Cheek, who was passing through the gym. “My hand? No!” Cheek responded firmly, but she eventually consented.

After the initial rounds, four finalists presented their experiments for the whole school to see: Josh Lugo, Izabela Henderson, Gabriel Mainardes and Emily Hensley. Lugo presented an electromagnetic battery train. Hensley used copper sulfate dissolved in water, a power source and wires to coat a metal nut with copper. Henderson set Imperial Academy department head Joel Hilliker’s hand on fire.

Henderson’s presentation came in second place. The winning experiment was presented by seventh-grader Gabriel Mainardes, who took water and used sodium hydroxide, two 10 milliliter syringes and copper wires connected to an 18.5-volt battery to separate the hydrogen and oxygen before lighting the combustible hydrogen on fire.