‘Science is fun and it should be fun’

Cross-Canada tour encourages students to check out the sciences

A travelling exhibition of scientific wonder arrived in Cape Breton with a big-name guest thrown in for good measure.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Art McDonald, a Sydney native who achieved world-wide scientific acclaim for his work on neutrino (tiny subatomic particles) oscillation, spent a couple of hours mingling with local high school students at Monday’s Power of Ideas exhibit at Cape Breton University.

“Science is fun and it should be fun,” said McDonald, who spent part of his time encouraging young female students to consider a so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.

While not all of the students bused to the university to take in the exhibit were aware they were in the presence of a scientific giant, there were some who did.

Joshua Cameron, a Grade 12 at the Breton Education Centre in New Waterford, made it a point to meet McDonald and to shake his hand.

“I’m planning to go into medicine, to be a doctor, but I really wanted to meet him (McDonald) — I guess I am interested in better understanding the universe and the world we live in,” said the New Waterford teen.

The cross-Canada tour, selected by the Department of Canadian Heritage as a Canada 150 Signature initiative, is a presentation of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and has been on the go since January. By the time the tour wraps up it will have visited more than 60 communities across the country.

The Power of Ideas exhibition features a number of interactive displays that introduce people to various aspects of science through practical and entertaining methods, including a ‘Spaghettification’ mirror that distorts the image of the person gazing into the looking glass.

The exhibit’s next stop is New Glasgow, where it will be displayed on Friday at the public library. The tour then moves on to Dr. John Hugh Gillis High School in Antigonish, Oct. 2-3, St. Mary’s Bay Academy in Weymouth, Oct. 5-6, and the Discovery Centre in Halifax, Oct. 11-15.

DAVID JALA/CAPE BRETON POST Breton Education Centre Grade12 student Joshua Cameron, right, said it was a pleasure to meet Sydney native and astrophysicist Art McDonald, who was awarded a 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on neutrino oscillation, at the Power of Ideas...