Your Town: Student's experiment has a rock-solid start

Rock salt solid

Fourth-grader Madison Barnett gazed up at her Gilbert W. McNeal Science Fair project Feb. 8 with an accomplished smile.

She did her experiment on which salt melts ice the quickest. She found her hypothesis was incorrect, and that rock salt melts ice faster than table salt.

Barnett won first place in the physical science category and will be moving to the Manatee County STEM competition on March 4 at Manatee High School.

Is she nervous? “Not really,” Madison said.

A laughing matter

University Park resident Michael Sisti works as a marketing and business consultant, but now he spends much of his time writing for fun. 

An author since 2010, he released in January his fifth book "Mosquitos, Snowbirds & Other Florida Pests," through publisher OH! Orsini House. His next book, "The Real Poop on the Dog Track," comes out this month.

"My philosophy is even if you have difficult stuff to do, you have to have fun with it," he said.