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April 4, 2025By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
SHREWSBURY – Months of work and time spent after school came to fruition March 27 when St. Mary Elementary School held its first middle school science fair since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Participants in grades 5-8 showed their family members and other supporters their projects. Thirty judges, including parents, teachers from St. Mary’s and other schools, and community members, chose the top three winners in each grade, school leaders said.
Then students gathered excitedly around the stage as the principal, Liam Wintroath, announced the winners, and Katie Filmer, science teacher for grades 5-8, placed medals around their necks. (Winners were also promised an out-of-uniform day.) There was much cheering and applauding and some handshakes and embraces.
All 62 middle school students were required to participate and Mr. Wintroath made it clear that he wanted to congratulate them all. For some of them it was a new, and at times a scary, endeavor, he said.
Mrs. Filmer told The Catholic Free Press that the students worked on their projects over the course of five months – at school and on their own.
“I stayed after school every day” Monday through Thursday since Nov. 14 to help any students who wanted it, she said. She helped them with such tasks as deciding what to research, figuring out what information was reliable and doing experiments. Each student and student group had to choose a different project.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic and before she came to St. Mary’s three years ago, she coordinated science fairs on a school level for about 16 years, and on the diocesan level for five years, she said. But, she said, she’d never seen a project like Sebastian Pizzi’s “Turf War – Battle of the Fibers,” that explored which synthetic turf works best for lacrosse games. (He won second place among sixth-graders.)
He plays lacrosse, coached by his father, Stephen Pizzi. So, she helped him consider what research related to the game.
Mrs. Filmer said there has not been a Worcester diocesan science fair since COVID. But she told St. Mary’s winners in grades 6-8 that, if they are interested, she would register them for the Massachusetts Science & Engineering Fair being held May 10 at Clark University in Worcester. (Fifth graders are not eligible.)
Kim Riordan, assistant principal, said she had St. Mary’s fourth graders do projects about natural disasters last year when she was teaching them. But that was not of the magnitude of this year’s science fair, she said.
“Our kids are superstars,” Mr. Wintroath told The Catholic Free Press. “And we have parents and families [who are] incredible partners. Not only do they support … their own children,” they also support the St. Mary’s community.
St. Mary Elementary School science fair winners
Grade 5
1st Place-Phil Lahey
2nd Place-Elvin Kwarteng and Matthew Philip
3rd Place-Martha Florean
Grade 6
1st Place-Jackson Horvath
2nd Place-Sebastian Pizzi
3rd Place-Lizzie Apicerno and Maddie Carlson
Grade 7
1st Place-Sophia Buffone and Phoee Beltran
2nd Place-David Doherty
3rd Place-Stella Datilo and Ella Lewers
Grade 8
1st Place-Mady Raposa
2nd Place-Ryan McIntosh
3rd Place-Thomas Diperro