Inuvik (Mar 18/05) - If you ever wanted to learn how to cook a hotdog with a lamp or wondered which music plants best respond to, Sir Alexander Mackenzie school (SAMS) gymnasium was the place to be last Saturday, as students from around the region displayed 22 projects at the Beaufort Delta Regional Science Fair.

Though she didn't make it to the winners' podium, Grade 5 student Kathreen Dyck's project won a special place in the heart of music lovers.

Entitled "The effects of plant growth when exposed to different types of music," Dyck's project pitted heavy metal against classical for the attention of her bean sprouts.

According to Dyck's results, plants exposed to any type of music fared better than the beans left to grow in silence and classical music produced slightly better results than a steady diet of Metallica.

Another interesting project was literally cooked up by Tuktoyaktuk Grade 8 students Chelsey Jacobson and John Edwards-Steen, who baked hotdogs in their homemade solar oven. Using a small industrial-strength lamp pointed at a converted tinfoiled pizza box, the pair were able to produce a top temperature of 68.4 degrees Celsius.

"It takes a little longer to cook, but it works," said Edwards-Steen of his and Jacobson's entry, which took third place.

By proving their hypothesis that smokers possess smaller lung capacity than non-smokers, Tuk students Kendyce Cockney and Nicole Steen earned first place and a trip to the National Science Fair in Vancouver in May.

"There are so many kids smoking that we wanted to do something that showed the impacts," said Cockney, talking about what prompted their award winning project "Smoking Sucks."

Also earning a trip to the nationals was Grade 7 student Janelle Pascal of Aklavik and partner Grade six student Prairie Dawn Edwards, came up with a project titled "Bubbles." A shared love of making bubbles inspired this pair to search for the best bubble making solution. According to them, no-name dish detergent produced the biggest bubbles - the largest one topping the charts with a diameter of 28 cm.

The national fair is restricted to Grade 7 students and older, but fair co-ordinator Alisha Manuel hopes special consideration will be made to allow Edwards to join Pascal.

Asked what she thought visiting Vancouver would be like, Pascal gave it some thought before answering.

"It must be bigger than Aklavik," the young bubble expert said with an excited grin.