Regional students showcase talents at Kiwanis science fair

Southeastern Alberta’s brightest young minds showcased their smarts in this year’s Kiwanis Regional Science Fair this month.

A Friday release highlighted this year’s winners from the virtual fair, including two Grade 9 students who will compete at the Canada Wide Science Fair in May — Senator Gershaw’s Victoria Rooks and Foremost School’s Britten Kurtzweg.

Rooks won the $200 intermediate high school gold medal prize for “Killing It!” while Kurtzweg earned the honour for “Pondering Pendulums.”

“We had to make the call early in the year for planning purposes to go virtual, and once again our students persevered and really showcased their love of science,” reads the release.”

Intermediate silver medals went to Grade 9 Ralston students Joseph Wall, for “Chemical Change,” as well as Kian Green and Riley Davies for “Are Sports Drinks Actually Better Than Water?”

Grade 11 Senator Gershaw student Ayden Rooks won the $250 gold medal prize in the senior division for “Polytechnic Aromatic Hydrocarbons.”

Ralston School students swept the junior high school division, with Grade 7s Marlie Pemberton and Rinzen Sherpa taking the $175 gold medal prize for “Marlie and Rinzen Colour Change Flower,” as well as Grade 8 Aden Pflughaupt for “Does the Colour of Food Affect its Taste?”

Grade 7 Patrick Rodrigue took silver for “How Do Different Drinks Affect Your Teeth?” as well as Grade 8s Kayden Reilly and Kofi AnsahOwusu for “How It Works.”

Bronze went Grade 8s Ava Spann and Poppu Sumner, and Grade 7s Taten Froese and Parker Froese.

Medicine Hat Christian School had a pair of gold medal winners in the elementary division, with Grade 5s Siena Smith and Rayna Mytrash’s “Are you sweet, salty or bitter?” and Grade 4s Emree Sloan and Coehoorn Philippa’s “Citrus or Non-Citrus” both earning the honour.

Connaught School Grade 5 student Titan Encinas earned silver with his solar power steam generator, along with MHCS’s Lincoln Bartsch for “What’s popping?”

Bronze went to Grade 4 Raimyel Tablan and Grade 5 Jinoel Tablan of St. John Paul II School, Grade 6 Elise Poku and Grade 5s Isaac Holmes and Elias Pemberton of Ralston School, Grade 4 Isabella Marshall of St. Patrick’s School and Grade 5 Nic Brost of MHCS.

Ralston School’s Yasmine Kamara and Joyous Raskoti, Lucy Cowley and Hollie Hemingway, and Kyla Green and Jamie-Leigh Beatty, as well as Esther Snider of MHCS earned honourable mentions.