What an exciting week it has been! Featuring a variety of fun and educational science activities for the whole school to participate in, Science Expo has been quite an enjoyable event for everyone involved. Here are some highlights:
The Assembly: The Senior Science Club worked diligently for weeks before the event to ensure that the Science Expo Week Assembly would be interesting and interactive for the audience. Thanks to their efforts, this became reality and the assembly generated plenty of laughs. With such fascinating demos as the Ruben’s Tube, which produces flames that danced with music, and the oscilloscope, which is a digital representation of sound waves, the whole school was mesmerized by the power of science. The Power of Ideas Tour: This year, we were especially lucky to host the Power of Ideas Tour at our school. It is part of the nationwide Innovation150 celebrations marking Canada’s 150th anniversary. The tour brings together a wide array of presenters with different backgrounds and disciplines who all share a passion for science and innovative ideas. Many science classes participated in this tour’s engrossing Science Exhibition, Innovation Talk, and Makermobile Workshops, and everyone who participated has, without doubt, learned something from these wonderful events.
Pinhole Camera Projects: The Grade 8 students were asked in their science classes to make a pinhole camera and take pictures with it. The results were stunning, and through this project, the students were able to better understand how light travels and experienced the practical uses of scientific knowledge. Biomimicry Challenge: The Grade 9 students all completed the biomimicry challenge, where they studied the unique traits of various animals and used them to create an innovation that could solve a problem in our society. This creative challenge enabled them to further explore the biological and natural processes of our planet, gain awareness of some problems currently plaguing our society, and practice their problem-solving skills. Hopefully, you were able to check out some of these ingenious designs!
Science Expo Presentations: The students taking Science 10 Enriched this year all did a project for Science Expo, where they created an innovation or experiment using scientific principles. This allowed them to discover and learn about many scientific facts and ideas and figure out their uses, all the while developing their critical thinking and problem solving skills. Students from grades eleven and twelve were also allowed to make their own projects if they were interested. The best of these are then selected to go to the Regional Science Fair.
This year’s Science Expo Week has been a great success and has definitely helped many individuals discover their interest in science. Here are some final comments from Eva Cai, a grade twelve student who has helped organize some of the events:
“I loved the addition of the Power of Ideas tour in this year’s Science Expo Week! It was really great to see that the week’s events—many of them organized by students—turned out successfully. As a STEM student, I hope that more people are inspired to explore science and see its beauty and applications.”
By: Angela Wang