The usual local school science fair was kicked up a notch this year at Rochester School.
The school hosted its first ever Innovation Week where students learned through doing various projects over four days, which was to culminate on a public showcase on Nov. 28.
Then came the huge dump of snow and rough road conditions that forced the Aspen View Public School division to cancel all of its buses, which made the school postpone the display until Dec. 1.
“Innovation Week is something I’d learned about a few years ago from some schools down in central Alberta,” said Slade Sekulich, Rochester School principal.
“(It’s) where students can take the opportunity to learn a lot more of one of their hobbies, start a project, work on a project. It’s nothing that we do for them. They chose their projects and we give them time to work on it throughout the week.”
On Dec. 1, the students lined the walls of the school’s gym to show off the results of their work with projects running the gambit from baking to video games to catapults to robots.
“It’s a mix of Lego and robotics,” said student Joel Hersey about his project. “I used the core set, which you can build any one of these five from, and they all have pretty simple functions, like this one can lift up objects and this one, it drives around.”
Sekulich said the teachers watched a lot of students like Hersey, have “Aha” moments all week.
“We watch them stare off into space for a half an hour at a time and they jump and they go into work and suddenly something will work better or faster,” he said.
“Finding out ‘Wow, that didn’t work, what can I do to make that work.’ So, it’s a real learning moment for them.”
Sekulich added the students had a great time working on the projects and the entire week gave the students a chance to learn something using a hands-on approach, something many of the students enjoyed.
“They just couldn’t believe that they actually had time to work on this in school. ‘We can do this? This is allowed?’” commented Sekulich.
”It’s not a regular blocked class like they would do in a day, but this is information, it is maybe what you’re going to be doing in real life.
“It gives them the chance to get out of the books and out of the computer and do something hands-on, applying what they know and making real life moments.”
