Each year our Grade 7 and 8 students showcase their sciences skills by creating their own original experiment or innovation for the SJS STEAM Fair. This project leads up to a small handful of students to be nominated by the teachers to compete at a provincial level at the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair (GVRSF).
With three days full of networking, presentations and even a few backstage tours of professional labs, our students represented SJS well and even walked away with a few awards!
SJS News sat down with William Collins, a Grade 8 student in his first year at SJS and in the STEAM fair, to hear more about the experience first hand.
The Student Perspective with William, Grade 8
The start of our project was very open-ended. Pick any science, any topic and as long as it’s approved by the teacher you can run with it. In essence, we had to create either an experiment or an innovation that brought something of value to the world, and then write a five-page scientific paper to explain our process, the procedures and of course ethics, if it was applicable.
We then created a three-panel poster board to demonstrate our project for the SJS STEAM fair, from which I was fortunate enough to be nominated by the teachers to represent SJS at the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair.
My project was called Aquasalum, an innovation that hybridizes a convolutional neural network and RGB analysis model to analyze pictures of aquarium water test strips to accurately read and provide recommendations to maintain habitat water quality.
This idea came from caring for my own aquarium at home, and also as a solution for water conservation in marine sciences. Oftentimes if scientists or aquarists are faced with unclear or uncertain water readings, they will completely empty and refill the water in a habitat. This is very wasteful, especially when it comes to fresh water, a finite source on our planet. If they had a tool like Aquasalum, they could make informed and conserved decisions to maintain water quality in habitats without having to waste water.
I had so much fun at the fair, which was held at UBC. I learned so much going around the room and seeing what these other students had created. It was so inspiring to see what people my age could do for the world.
While that was easily a highlight, the whole experience was super rewarding. The judges were professional scientists from a variety of backgrounds and fields of study, and they gave great feedback on my project and how I could take it to the next level. We also got to go on a tour of one of the UBC labs—I got to see the marine ecology lab, which was very interesting.
Unfortunately I wasn’t eligible for any of the awards, as I had to miss the second day of judging due to my commitment to the school musical. Regardless, I’m grateful for the experience. There was a lot of camaraderie because everyone was trying to achieve something that would make the world a better place. It was inspiring to see how other people did that, and learn from their mistakes, their experiences and their successes. Hopefully I was able to teach some people as well. Regardless of the outcome, I took a lot away from the experience.
Congratulations Young Scientists
In addition to William, SJS was represented by Avery, Logan, Lukas, Jacob, Mateo, Neo, Tanya and Will. Their projects spanned a wide range of sciences, and did a great job representing our school on this scientific stage.
Tanya earned an honourable mention for her investigation into how a homemade calcium carbonate–based bioplastic affects soil quality and plant growth, exploring its potential as a more sustainable alternative to commercial plastics.
Mateo received a bronze medal for Man vs. Machine, a study on AI image generation that tested participants’ ability to distinguish between real and AI-generated images, revealing an overall identification accuracy of 40.3%.
Neo won gold for developing UroAlert, a wearable device that uses low-cost sensors and predictive modeling to monitor urostomy bag fullness and provide timely alerts to prevent overfilling and leakage. Neo was also awarded the BC Science Teachers’ Association Award ($100), which is given to a student in Grade 7 or 8 for an experimental project in any category that clearly presented an hypothesis and independent, controlled variables.
Congratulations to all the students nominated to represent SJS and for their hard work on their projects. We can’t wait to see what future innovations you come up with next.
