By Jill Sperling

Students attempt to answer big questions at regional science fair

Apr 11, 2019 | 3:52 PM

KAMLOOPS — Elementary and high school students from across the Interior of British Columbia gathered at Thompson Rivers University for the 2019 Cariboo-Mainline Regional Science Fair. 

“A lot of students from Kamloops participate, but we also have Merritt, 100 Mile, Williams Lake,” said head judge for the day, Mark Orr. “They all participate in this regional science fair as well, so we have about 200 participants this year.”

Each student was among the top finishers at their own school’s science fair, and has moved on to the regional science fair for a chance to go to nationals. 

“There will be four projects that are selected to move on to Canada Wide national fair which is going to be held in Fredericton,” Orr said. 

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Kamloops student Adam Patton has been to the Canada Wide Science Fair twice before and is hoping to make it there again with his project, ‘The Power of Hydrogen’. 

“I put electrodes, which are made out of metal in water and I applied an electro-current to them and basically made hydrogen fuel,” Patton explained. 

Patton says he hopes to be part of the solution when it comes to combating climate change. 

“I don’t want it to be passed on to my future generations,” he said. “So, I just thought I would look into it and at least try and contribute to the fight against global warming.” 

Alya Van Laer came from Chilliwack to show the judges her project on black holes, a timely presentation given the first ever image of a black hole was released this week. 

“Just yesterday I added something to my project on the new picture,” the Grade 6 student said. 

Van Laer set out to discover whether people should be afraid of black holes. 

“I found that, no, the closest one is 3,000 light-years away, and one light-year is six trillion kilometres, so it’s pretty far away,” she said. 

Other students set out to find out more about everyday items, such as determining how flammable certain fabrics and fabric softeners are. 

“My family likes to go camping a lot and my mom loves being warm and cozy because she hates being cold,” said Nicola Peters, a Grade 7 student from Merritt, “but what if someone’s pants or jacket caught on fire at the campfire? What material is it made of, how much would it burn?”

Judges are looking for innovation, study, or an experiment in each project and are marking on creativity and presentation. 

“The quality is good this year,” said Orr, “you can definitely see the people that have been here in the past, they’ve built on some of the projects they’ve done. Definitely our Novice is our biggest category that we have, the younger students, Grades 4 to 5, in that range. So, a lot of those projects, a lot of first timers here, so I think they’ve put in a lot of effort on it.” 

The students who the judges select to move on will be awarded on Friday.