Heather Latter
Although Tyler VanUden and Taylor Whitehead returned empty-handed last week from the Canada-Wide Science Fair (CWSF) in Toronto, they both learned a lot and had a great experience.
The Grade 7 students from J.W. Walker School here were finalists in the Sunset Country Regional Science Fair held April 2 and received the honour of competing at the national level, which took place May 14-21.
In bringing together Canada’s top young scientists, the CWSF aims to accomplish two primary goals: to help participants benchmark their scientific and technological achievements against those of peers, as well as to create a positive scientific and social experience for all the young people involved.
A secondary goal is to expose other students in the CWSF’s geographic area to peer role models—the best young science and technology minds in the country.
“We didn’t win but it was an honour just to go there,” noted VanUden, who created the project—entitled “How Hot Is Your Shot?”—with partner Nolin Spuzak (who was unable to attend the event in Toronto).
The pair tested to see if shooting a puck in warmer weather would increase the speed of a slapshot.
“Our hypothesis was that shooting in warmer weather would increase the speed the puck would travel,” VanUden explained.
“Our hypothesis was correct,” he added. “The warmer the weather, the harder the shot.”
They then crafted a stick with a heated shaft, which theoretically created a harder shot.
Whitehead, meanwhile, experimented to see if playing music for plants could help them increase their growth rate.
“I used three plants and one listened to classical music, the other listened to rock music, and the last one listened to no music for 20 minutes a day for one week,” Whitehead noted, citing his findings showed that playing classical music for plants improved their growth rate through the energy and sound waves created by the music.
Stephen Stechishen from Red Lake, another finalist from the regional competition, also attended the CWSF in Toronto while Grade 7/8 teacher Shannon Davidson-George, from J.W. Walker, acted as the chaperone.
“I was very impressed with [VanUden and Whitehead’s] projects,” Davidson-George enthused.
“People seemed very interested in their experiments,” she added. “During the public viewing, many people stopped to ask questions.”
Davidson-George said VanUden and Whitehead’s projects were comparable to most of the other ones there, though adding there certainly were some of a higher calibre.
“There were ones that knew what it takes to win,” she remarked, citing one project, in particular, that experimented with suppressing cancer progression.
While the scientists behind that project, Jaclynn Wong and Danny Huang, are Grade 12 students, their effort earned them a total of $39,500 in awards and scholarships.
“You could tell they spent a lot of time working on their project,” Davidson-George noted.
“So I think I’m going to change the way I teach science by allowing them more classroom time to test their theories.”
She also indicated perhaps she will have her students begin their science projects in September, instead of later in the year.
Both VanUden and Whitehead, after receiving some suggestions from the judges and getting ideas from viewing other projects at the fair, plan to improve upon their experiments and compete again next year.
The next Canada-Wide Science Fair will take place in May, 2012 in Prince Edward Island.
Davidson-George hopes the pair will be a mentor among their peers with the insight they’ve gain from competing at the national level.
“It was a great experience,” VanUden enthused, though adding it was a lot of work and an intense week.
Besides showing their projects and having them judged, the participants also had the opportunity to take in the sights of Toronto.
Neither VanUden or Whitehead had been there before, and enjoyed seeing the CN Tower, a Blue Jays’ baseball game, and experiencing the subway.
“I was very proud of them,” stressed Davidson-George, noting more than 500 students participated in the event.
“It was a real learning experience.”
