By Tyler Marr

Students showcase experiments at science fair

Apr 27, 2017 | 6:00 AM

Be it generating hydroelectric power or securing hydrocarbons to asphalt, students were embracing their inner Bill Nye Wednesday afternoon at the Prince Albert Science Fair.

Now in its third year, the fair took over Saskatchewan Polytechnic where students from Grade 6 to 8 showed off their projects that were judged by community members, academics and those from the Saskatchewan Rivers School board.

“We are trying to really work on their critical thinking skills,” Neru Franc, fair committee member said.  She added the introduction of science and STEM education was vital with students of this age.

Cultivating these thinking skills, encouraging students to ask ‘why’, performing research and carrying through life the ability to question the world was another central reason for hosting the event.

“We do not want them to just find just somebody to tell them this is how it is and just sit back. We want them to explore and ask why because if you don’t… how is anything going to get better?” she said. “There are always those projects that change the world. This is what we are trying to do right now and bring out of them.”

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Franc said the fair also provided an outlet for those students who perhaps are not interested in the arts or sport to show off their talents.

Though some projects were tied to school curriculum, many were conjured up by the young minds and developed based on their individual interests.

This was the case for Grade 8 students Hunter Tremblay and Mckenna Kyliuk whose experiment was looking to discover what animal — human, dog, cat or rabbit — contained the least bacteria in their mouths.

When asked why they enjoyed the experiments, Tremblay said it was tied to “being curious and wanting to see what happens when you do ‘x’ and ‘y’ and see where it takes you.”

“Not only is it interesting doing our own experiment… but it is interesting seeing other people’s too,” she added.

One booth peaking interest was that of Grade 6 students Kassie Ferster and Brandi Nelson who citied learning about climate change and renewable energy in class encouraged them to built a hydroelectric generation machine using spoons, CDs, copper wire and magnets.

“It doesn’t pollute the Earth. If you use this maybe the world will be here longer and not have as much pollution,” Ferster said, adding it was a “really big opportunity” to be at the event.

As to why she loved science: “You learn stuff by actually doing projects and lots of the projects will help people too.”

Some students involved will have the opportunity to visit Regina next month for the Canada Wide Science Fair and partake in a number of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) workshops.

tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr