The projects around the gymnasium varied. Some were not even the students first choices.
However, they all persevered.
Sarah Leckie and Emma Shea showed off one of the 75 displays at the North Bay Regional Science Fair event which started this morning at Nipissing University.
“Our project is testing a different type of bacteria on lanyards and different ways that we can clean them so which is the best method,” said Leckie, a grade 10 student at Widdifield.
And what did they find out?
“Basically all the techniques that we used to clean lanyards all have the same statistical, they were all effective in the same way,” noted Shea.
For Leckie and Shea, this was their third project after their first two science fair projects fell through.
Judges walked up and down the isles scrutinizing every project. This Widdifield duo isn’t sure how they will be judged but they do believe the long hours were worth it.
“It teaches us lots of time management skills, working on a deadline like obviously, we had to be prepared for today in practice,” said Leckie.
“Definitely organizational skills and stringing it all together and not leaving any part out.”
Andrew Weeks has been the chief judge at the local science fair for four years now. He believes science fair’s have a lot of tradition as this event has been around for more than 55 years.
“People may argue what is the relevance in today’s fast-moving pace and team robotics competitions and so on,” said Weeks.
“But the unique thing about the science fair that will always be the case is that you have in individual effort - maybe in a pair, but you have got an individual question that a student has and they are very curious about something in the world or with science and they get to put in that time and really figure out something for themselves.
“They get to answer a question that they have and that is kind of unique. The regular learning process does not allow a student to go off on their own question all the time and answer it.”
It is a lot more than just a school project. Weeks says some the projects that started right here in North Bay have made an impact.
“One project that comes to mind from a number of years ago a student developed something that is now a commercially available product to help older people who suffer from Dementia. There were working on it and created running shoes that had a GPS inside them and lights inside would guide them home,” noted Weeks.
The awards will be handed out at the Robert Surtees Sports Complex at Nipissing University around 6:30 p.m.