Homemade hovercrafts, testing which soaps and detergents work best and what melts ice the best are some of exhibits you might see at 46th annual Westlock Area Science Fair.
The event will be held at the Westlock District Community Hall March 5 and features exhibits by students from Westlock, Clyde, Busby, Dapp, and for the first time, Barrhead.
“One of the things that’s really important about science and science fairs is that idea of investigation, and delving into a problem, and experimenting and trying something … of learning though doing,” said Tammy Tkachuk, president of the Westlock Local ATA Science Council.
“One of the things as educators that we are talking more and more is project-based learning and engaging students in directing their own learning, and science fairs really let them do that.”
Competition is open to Grades 1 to 12 students with the majority of the exhibits being drawn from Grades 4 to 6.
Judging will take place on March 5, between 4 and 6 p.m. with the public viewing stating at 6 p.m., winners will be announced at 7 p.m.
Awards will be given for chemistry, biology, physics and environmental science.
“The environmental category is quite popular,” Tkachuk said. “But it’s generally a good cross section of topics.”
Winners from the Westlock fair will go on to compete in the Edmonton regional event on April 11 and 12 at the northern campus of Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
“I’m always amazed when I go to the Edmonton Regional Science Fair with how very well represented we are at that level,” Tkachuk said
Past winners of the local event have gone on to success at the provincial and national level, including Siddhant Gautam from R.F. Staples who made it all the way to the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Windsor, Ont. last year.
Tkachuk thinks that science education is a way of creating opportunities for people.
“You look at Alberta and you look at our oil industry, science and engineering and mathematics are a very important part of that, so they’re filling that important need in our society,” she said.
