Discovering what scent attracts a ferret the most and determining if domestic mice are smarter than field mice were two of the many projects that middle and high school students displayed Friday at the 54th annual High Plains Regional Science and Engineering Fair at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

"We, as well as every science and engineering university, have a goal to support science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM," Dr. Brian Hemmelman, director of the science fair, said.

Hemmelman said even if students do not end up attending the School of Mines, what matters most is that they still go into those fields.

"It's what our country needs," Hemmelman said.

Miranda Meeker and Brittany Thompson, eighth-graders at Spearfish Middle School, won first place in their division for their project. They gave adults and students an eighth-grade-level science misconceptions test to see if education had improved over the years.

"It catches your attention when you actually do something, as opposed to just reading about it," Miranda said.

Brittany said she recommends that all students participate in a science-fair project.

"Especially when you win, it is very exciting," Brittany said.

Justice Hansen, a seventh-grader at Spearfish Middle School, said she was nervous the judges would ask her really hard questions that she would not know how to answer.

"I think everyone was a little nervous when the judges came in," Justice said. "I was really nervous, but I get nervous around people I don't know. Luckily, only one judge asked a question I didn't understand, but then he explained what he was talking about."

Justice said although science is not her favorite subject in school, she thought the science-fair project was a great way to make it more interesting. Through her project "Red Light, Green Light…," she discovered that plants grow best under green light, compared to plants grown under red light or blue light.

"Some of those sixth-graders have pretty wide deer-in-the-headlight eyes, so we try our hardest not to make them feel nervous," Hemmelman said. "I even tell the judges that … they should not be intimidating."

The judges are mostly local adults from pharmacies, the hospital and various science and engineering firms around Rapid City. It is hard to get School of Mines students and professors to judge on Fridays because they usually cannot spare the entire block of hours needed for judging.

"No matter what the quality of the students' projects are, the judges are supposed to give them positive comments so they are encouraged to try harder next time, and they aren't smashed down so hard that they never want to do science again," Hemmelman said.