Hanamei Shao might not have blown up a volcano in her parents’ kitchen, as is commonly seen in movies, while preparing for the second annual Honolulu District Science Fair, but she did scorch the family toaster.

The animated eighth-grader from Niu Valley Middle School said she attempted to make a substance similar to the carbon material found in household water filters by using bread because it is organic material that can easily be burned to a crisp.

But after two slices, the toaster called it quits.

"I actually burnt the toaster in the process of doing this," Hanamei, 13, said with a laugh. "But it came out … really nice and black."

Still determined to burn bread, Hanamei turned to the barbecue: "I kind of like set it on fire and I did it until it was totally black, like even in the middle," she explained. "It was totally black and totally burnt, and I crushed it with a mallet in a bag."

Hanamei won second place Saturday in the Junior Research Project division of the science fair, though she said she was unsuccessful at using burned wood chips and bread to filter water.

"This basically didn’t work at all, so you probably shouldn’t use this if you run out of (filters)," she joked.

The teen did, however, make some interesting discoveries.

"I was surprised to find that the carbon filters didn’t really filter out the bacteria from the water, but the wood chips did," she said. "I found that the carbon works (because) the atom bonds to other substances easily, so that’s how it filters the water. But it can’t filter out minerals, salts or microorganisms like parasites and bacteria, so that’s why it didn’t filter out the bacteria."

Saturday’s fair at Kapiolani Community College featured nearly 120 projects by more than 225 students, fair officials said. Organizers said they were impressed by participation at the elementary school level, which drew 74 projects and 154 students — a nearly 30 percent increase from last year.

Many students’ projects, such as Hanamei’s, were inspired by their surroundings and daily observations.

Jasmine Santiago, a Kalakaua Middle School eighth-grader and last year’s overall winner, said she was interested in finding out whether people’s age, gender, dominant brain hemisphere (left or right), outlook on life, or other characteristics influence their ability to discern fake from genuine smiles.

"Females (scored well) because they’re more sensitive to feelings," the 13-year-old said. "And right-brained (people did well) because they are more creative, so they can seek out the special characteristics in what makes a genuine smile."

Lussami Saengsouri, 12, Wilson Tadena, 13, and Marco Angelo De Dios, 12, all Kalakaua Middle School eighth-graders, said their passion for preventing skin damage and skin diseases led them to research which sunscreens or sun-blocking moisturizers work best.

"Hawaii is known for our tourists and our beaches," Lussami said. "We might forget to put on sunscreen or moisturizer to protect us, and skin cancer is one of the most serious cancers … so we want people to be cautious about what they’re doing to their skin."

The group placed white ultraviolet-sensitive beads in plastic bags, spread various sun lotions on the bags, put the bags in the sun for 10 minutes, and judged how well the lotion worked by how dark the beads became. Lighter beads meant more protection, while more intense, vivid beads meant less protection.

"In our hypothesis we thought the Walgreens sunscreen lotion would have the lightest color because of the (high) SPF and because it stayed active for a long time," Wilson said. "Though in our conclusion we found out that … the Avon sun lotion had worked much better."

Wilson said the Avon lotion might have worked better because it was thicker than the others, and that thickness would be a good variable to test in future experiments.

"Science is everywhere, and it’s just fun to learn how things (work)," he said.

Phillip Blackman, a science fair judge and trained engineer who now works as a mentor and consultant, said he was impressed by the enthusiasm of the teachers, students and community groups at the competition. But he said he is concerned that students didn’t make use of mathematical equations, formulas and other skills, and he wished he saw more integration of science, technology, engineering and math — STEM — concepts.

"You have the JROTC (students) from Farrington making it happen, you have a lot of volunteers, a lot of judges — those are all positive things, and I think the students get a good feeling about themselves and they’re happy with the way the contest is," Blackman said. "(But) I’m exceedingly concerned, though, that there’s not a good integration of math, metric units or measurement concepts brought into any of the projects. … We are not getting very far (by) plotting data, which is a far cry from what we need of our engineers and our scientists to make America get on the front (of education)."

Kevin Lye, director of clinical research at Tissue Genesis, said he enjoys judging the state fair, but this was the first time he judged middle-schoolers at the district level.

"It’s really given me a good insight to the types of things students are interested in, what they’re pursuing," he said. "A lot of them have had some great ideas, and the execution of these experiments varies, but I think that everyone here has made a good contribution and a good effort."