The team ofAnaya Permanand and Samara Green are headed to the nation’s capital next month after putting together one of the best overall projects at the 2018 Northern Manitoba Regional Science Fair.
These two Grade 7 students impressed the judges at Riverside School on April 13−14 with their experiment that attempted to determine how music affects one’s overall heart and blood pressure.
According to Riverside science teacher Mervat Yehia, Permanand and Green have been chomping at the bit to claim this prize ever since they were old enough to participate in this competition.
“I was encouraging them since they were in Grade 4. I made the science fair mandatory that year,” she said. “I was telling them if they keep on going because one day they are going to be moving to Canada-Wide.”
Because of this win, the two Riverside pupils will be travelling to Ottawa next month to take part in the 2018 Canada-Wide Science Fair, which runs May 12−19 and features 500 of the country’s top young scientists.
“It’s a good opportunity to go get an experience outside of Thompson,” said Yehia. “Because we don’t have this opportunity here. We don’t have a university professor monitoring.”
This year’s regional science fair featured over 20 submissions from Grade 4−8 students from Thompson, The Pas and Flin Flon.
Rather than relying on tired ideas like a paper mache volcano, a lot of these submissions showcased an impressive level of creativity and asked thought-provoking questions like “Do Wi-Fi signals stunt plant growth?” and “Do all babies look alike?”
One of the other big highlights from this event came courtesy of Flin Flon student Jarek Osika, who also claimed the fair’s other top spot based on the strength of his project titled “Exploring 1420 MHz.”
Osika told the Thompson Citizen that he was using this specific frequency to try and determine which shape of antenna works better for communication. He eventually determined that a horn shaped antenna is much more useful than a dish shaped antenna thanks to its wider span.
Because of this, Osika will be the third student representing Northern Manitoba in the upcoming Canada-Wide Science Fair.
