From boogers to volcanoes: 4th annual PotashCorp Mini Science Fair
- EFN Staff | May 04, 2015
Exploding volcanoes, plant projects and booger blobs were all on display for an esteemed panel of judges to deem best in show for the 4th annual PotashCorp Mini-Science Fair. K-5 students from Saskatoon Tribal Council First Nation schools had their best ideas put forward from what they learned through research and built displays explaining their projects.
The students took part in robotics demonstrations and other science presentations and also explained their projects to judges from PotashCorp, the University of Saskatchewan as well as the Tribal Council. It wasn’t about winning as all the students receive prizes, it was more about inspiration.
“This event creates new opportunities for the students and an awareness of their talent in science and math. We need to develop those talents,” said Saskatoon Tribal Council Chief Felix Thomas. “They are naturally curious right now and if we can get them interested in some of the non traditional employment areas like engineering it is good. Universities have done a great job in developing nurses, and teachers and social workers but we have to work on the natural sciences. We are starting to get there in terms of dentistry and medicine but we need to get better. We need to be in all industries like economics or science and these students are certainly capable of that.”
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PotashCorp sponsors the yearly event. Even though these future scientists are far away from the labour market, they will be the employees of the future.
“Our business doesn’t just plan for next year, we have eighty years of potash to mine here,” said Leanne Bellegarde, Director Aboriginal Strategy at PotashCorp. “We need to inspire the next generation of geologists and engineers and subjects like math and science are basics needed in those fields. In the long run, we need to do more of this for young people.”
Marie Wolfe from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation did a classic experiment with a stalk of celery.
“We put food colouring in the water and the plant drank up the water and changed colour,” said Wolfe, who really enjoyed working on computers for research and creating her story board. But her favourite part was lunch. “I love pizza. It is my favourite food because of the cheese.”
The students worked hard on their projects and were duly rewarded with pizza and their own individual science kits to take home, and again, according to Tribal Chief Thomas, the science fair had the desired effect.
“The big thing I see is not so much the experiments, but how the kids are engaged. Doing this and seeing stuff that they don’t necessarily see in their class back home that creates some excitement and hopefully they build their own robot or science experiment and just be interested. That’s the big thing.”
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