St. Lawrence Secondary School was packed on Saturday as parents, students, and spectators from across the Cornwall, SDG and Akwesasne descended upon the 44th annual United Counties Science Fair.
Over 300 exhibits from students in grades 1 through 11 were on display, offering information on a wide number of scientific queries. Primary students in grades 1 to 5 presented “Science On the Wall” posters, while students in grades 6 to 11 presented more traditional science fair projects.
“We want to give them that opportunity to showcase their talents, their curiosities, their projects, their discoveries and we love that,” said Jason Marshall, chair of the organizing committee. “We’re just so grateful for all of the professionals and judges who come from the community and engage the students all morning.”
“Our goal is to get the message out to schools that there are opportunities for students in science and technology.”
The organizing committee offers over $12,000 in prizes and for a few select students, the scientific journey doesn’t end here. The next stop is the national science fair, to be held later this year in Fredericton, N.B.
Anisha Banga, a Grade 11 student at St. Lawrence Secondary School, won best senior project, best environmental project, as well as a few other scholarships, and will be heading to Fredericton later this year.
“My project took Darwin’s theory of evolution and Mendel’s theories of genetics and putting them together to create a new species by altering DNA,” said Banga. “We can beneficially mutate DNA by controlling the environment that it’s in.
“Eventually, we can move those new species to different planets.”
For Banga, the challenges of space exploration are a longstanding interest.
“A few years ago, I did a project called Mars the Green Planet, where I discussed different ways to make Mars a more suitable environment for humans,” she said.
Banga hopes to move on to university following her final year of high school and even hopes to bring her ideas to NASA or a similar space research institute.
In the world of physics, two Holy Trinity students also offered a promising vision of the future when it comes to renewable energy. Aiden Crispin and Bed Patel spent a fair amount of time on stage, leaving the fair with a number of awards and scholarships.
“We have worked really hard for these awards, it’s a pretty good feeling to have won,” said Patel, who is also in Grade 11. “The reason we did this is we solved two huge problems. In third-world countries, people are living without electricity because they can’t afford it. We’re also lacking clean renewable energy sources…We wanted to create cheap energy for poor people and renewable energy for the future.”
Patel hopes to move on to engineering at the University of Waterloo, while Crispin is still exploring his options.
For those students who weren’t successful at winning awards at this weekend’s event, there is always next year to improve on their ideas and make further contributions to the sciences and their future.