Eleven-year-old Kimball Blake is geared up for his fourth year in the Albert Lea Science Fair.

Blake, whose project is titled “Do Green Bags Really Work?” questions whether Debbie Meyer’s Green Bags — an As Seen on TV product — keep fruits and vegetables fresh like the commercials promise.

He gathered up tomatoes, bananas, grapefruit, apples, spinach, cauliflower and even fresh flowers. And then on Feb. 18, Blake put each of the fruits and vegetables into a separate Green Bag and stored them in the places where they’d normally be stored.

Fourteen days later, he examined whether the produce was still fresh.

In some cases the bags worked; in others they didn’t.

Blake, who is eager to share the results of his experiment, is one of almost 300 students from all four Albert Lea elementary schools and St. Theodore Catholic School who will present their projects Saturday during the Albert Lea Science Fair at Northbridge Mall.

Judging begins at 9:30 a.m., and projects will be open to the public to view from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Awards will be given out starting at 1 p.m.

Blake said for the first three years he participated in the fair he won trophies, and that’s his goal again this year.

He will go up against many other creative projects.

Twelve-year-old Nicole Borneman tested whether people would pick up pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters at Northbridge Mall. She went out on four different days and dropped 35 coins.

Some people looked straight ahead as they passed the coins, other looked down at the coins and kept walking, and others picked them up, she said.

She watched who picked up the coins, whether they were men or women, and which coins were picked up most often.

Borneman said she thought people would pick up more quarters because they are bigger and are worth more. But it turned out that people picked up more nickels than any other coin.

Women picked up more coins than men, she said.

“I like learning new things,” Borneman said, of why she decided to participate in the science fair. She said she’s been participating since she was in third grade.

Brittany Mickelsen and Britney Hunt, who worked as a team to do their project, said they wanted to see if they could get stains out of carpet.

Using a scrap piece of carpet, they poured grape juice on it, letting it soak in for 30 minutes. Then they sprayed three different stain removers on the stains, and let them soak in for five minutes. They scrubbed the stains for about 15 seconds, and in the end found that the Spot Shot stain remover worked best.

What: Albert Lea Science Fair

Where: Northbridge Mall

When: Starts at 9:30 a.m. Saturday. Judging will go from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., projects will be open to the public from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and awards will be given out starting at 1 p.m.

Mickelsen said she decided to participate in the science fair with her friend because “it seemed like fun and it’s the last year we can do it.”

The team was also hoping to win a trophy.

Michelle Mortensen, district science fair coordinator, said the fair gives the students the opportunity to explore and look at different avenues. It is for students in third through sixth grade.

“It also lets them learn that science isn’t always positive,” Mortensen said.

Many times while experimenting, scientists make mistakes, she said, and that’s OK. Then they just work at their experiment a little differently.

She said she is hoping for about 100 judges to look at the projects on Saturday. Judges include community members, parents, college students and even advanced-placement high school students.