Logan Grose, 6, a first-grader at Broken Arrow, and his mother, Lisa Ball, a biology teacher at Southwest Junior High, view entries in the Douglas County Science Fair on Thursday. Grose won a second-place ribbon for his project on seat-belt safety.

A winter storm and school testing cut the 2008 Douglas County Science and Engineering Fair’s participants by about 300 this week.

But one first-grader was excited nonetheless.

Logan Grose, who goes to Broken Arrow School, worked on a project titled “Eggsactly Why You Should Buckle Up.” He made a visit back to the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds to see his results. He won second place for the first-grade category.

“To make the project, we had to get a toy car, put an egg in the back seat, buckle it up in different types of buckles and without buckles and crash it into a wall.”

Why, exactly, should you buckle up?

According to Grose’s findings, if you don’t, “you could get all cracked up.”

Project-based learning is a valuable education tool that takes time – time often lost to state assessments, said Grose’s mother, Lisa Ball.

Ball, a ninth-grade biology teacher at Southwest Junior High, said science projects “seem to be going by the wayside.”

“Everyone is so pressured to study for tests,” she said.

Science projects don’t just teach science, however, said David Nordlund, director of the fair.

He said the process teaches students how to define a problem or hypothesis, complete an experiment to answer the question, then compile information into a document and present findings.

“Think about how useful that is when they go to work,” Nordlund said. “So we’re preparing kids to go to work. It looks like it’s just science, but that’s just a tool. Most of these kids will never be a scientist, but this prepares them for life.”

The fair, which featured projects from 115 students from kindergarten to 12th grade, is the county’s 57th. The fair is run by volunteers. Nordlund said typically 450 students participate. However, Wednesday’s snowfall and testing schedules conflicted with the turnout.

The quality of each project was high, he said.

Several participants will also compete in the greater Kansas City science fair in March at Science Station.

The fair’s award ceremony is at 7 p.m. today in Building 21 at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds, 2110 Harper St.