Joey Payeur
Dave Black spotted a seed and figured he and his Grade 7-8 class at St. Francis School could make it bloom much bigger than intended.
“It was an experiment in a science textbook,” said Black.
“But they think on a lot smaller scale than I do.”
The result was Black’s Grade 7 students recently constructing their own bookshelves made out of cardboard tubing, masking tape, and recycled newspapers.
“It was important to me that we use recyclable materials,” student Joe Hardy said as he and project partners Montana Plasky and Jack Clinker stood proudly next to their creation.
“It’s not the best-looking of all things but it’s a better way to go in the future,” he reasoned.
Clinker was glad to demonstrate the durability of his group’s bookshelf.
“It can handle 92 pounds on it. I know because I can sit on it,” he chuckled.
D.J. Payne and partner Zander Morrison made a low centre of gravity a key element of their bookshelf.
“If you build it up higher, there’s more gravity to pull it down,” Morrison explained.
“By doing it this way, the books don’t have as much impact on it.”
Emma Yerxa, Shaylynn Marchuk, and Makenna Hill, meanwhile, put their own spin on the project.
“We wanted more of the first level to be very stable and have the whole bookshelf be very hard in the middle,” Yerxa noted.
“That’s important because when you start to put books on it, the weight will just snap the bookshelf in half if it’s not strong enough.”
The few Grade 8s in the class were given a separate task: design a floor plan for their own school–something that will be a reality with the planned merger of St. Francis and St. Michael’s into one building.
Rebecca Jourdain and partners Emma Mainville and Andie Hunter had explicit reasons for drawing their school the way they did.
“We wanted the junior grades on the first floor and the intermediate grades on the second,” Jourdain said.
“That separation is there because it’s easier to focus around people of your own age group,” she remarked.
“Plus, if there was ever an emergency, it’s easier for the younger kids to get out of the school if they’re on the first floor already.”
