Staff Writer

For the past 10 years, the psychology classes have put together an event to teach the students about various elements of what they have learned in class. This year, dozens of tables were scattered around the gym as students piled in to see the flamboyant posters representing each booth.
This year’s Psych Fair took place on April 9 and was open during all periods so that more students would get a chance to experience the fun. Social Science teacher Jay Heilman was in charge of this year’s fair. With 25 booths along with 78 Psychology students running the fair, participation has increased significantly from years in the past. At last year’s Psych Fair there were 14 booths and 38 students participating. Heilman believes the increase in participation and popularity is due to the fact that “the kids come in and see [the Psych Fair] and think ‘Oh hey, now I wanna take Psych!'”
For the past fives weeks the students, along with their teachers, Heilman and Daria Schaffeld, have been preparing for this event. They have been coming up with the ideas, doing their research, and making their posters. All the effort and hard work put into preparing for the Psych Fair has payed off as shown by the number of students that went to see the presentations.
Some examples of topics that were displayed are color blindness, depth perception and memory. Heilman says the ideas for the booths are steered by the students interests. The students will choose their topic based on what they find most interesting and what they want to teach the Prospect community about.
The booth that seemed to be the most popular was “O Say Can You See?” At this booth students would test their depth perception. The student running the booth would hold a dart above a dart board and move according to the directions the participant told him. When the participant believed the dart would be dropped directly on top of the bulls eye he/she would tell the instructor to drop the dart. After numerous tries the instructor would add up the participant’s score to determine what level of depth perception he/she has.
The true popularity of the Psych Fair can be determined by how many students roamed the halls with lollipops in their mouths. Students could purchase a brain shaped lollipop to support the Psych Fair for one dollar.
As the Psych Fair provides a chance for students to learn more about psychology and get a taste of what taking psychology as a class at Prospect is like, Heilman believes the popularity and participation will continue to increase.