Charles Hays’ Grade 12 student Maria Levkovytska from will be travelling to Ottawa after winning the senior division of the Pacific Northwest Regional Science Fair on April 14.
Also making the trip are Smithers Secondary School Grade 11 student Rachel Cuell who was the senior runner up with “A study of suicide in Canada”, Grade 7 Muheim student Chloe Williston came first in the junior category with “Nature: who knows, who cares?” and St. Joseph’s School Grade 7 student Tess Wellington with her project “Here’s the buzz about bee houses.”
Levkovytska’s project “Emergent behaviour in simple systems” was one of four selected at the fair where young inquisitive minds had a chance to showcase their scientific creations.
Charles Hays Secondary School hosted the event, in which students from Houston to Prince Rupert entered 83 projects covering topics including environmentally friendly electricity generation to factors affecting suicide rates.
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The projects were judged based on the subject matter, creativity and scientific methodology followed in the experiments. Karen Price, one of the fair’s judges, said what was really important was the path students used to come to their conclusion, not necessarily that they confirmed their hypothesis.
One such project involved sampling the syrup from dozens of maple trees to find out if male maple trees produced more syrup than female maple trees. Even though the results of the experiment did not meet the expectations of the student, Price said it was good to see an experiment that led to more questions.
“She wasn’t actually able to find a pattern,” said Price.
“But the good thing about that is that then leads on to future questions, and I think the important part is that people are asking questions about things they care about.”
