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West Kootenay celebrates science

The Community Complex in Castlegar hosted the Community Science Celebration on Saturday, April 14.
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Local youngsters learn about science at the Community Science Celebration at the Castlegar Complex on Saturday.


The Community Complex in Castlegar hosted the Community Science Celebration on Saturday, April 14. The event was put on by KAST (Kootenay Association for Science and Technology), Selkrik College and several school districts.

"It's a combined event," said Kelvin Saldern, executive director of KAST. "It's the regional science fair and we combine that with what we call the Community Science Celebration. It's the fifth year we've run the Community Science Celebration in conjunction with the regional science fair."

More than 25 business and organizations had booths set up for youngsters to check out with many of them interactive. There was also a live show performed by Science World. In the science fair, nearly 70 students competed for the right to represent the region at the Canada-wide competition in May.

"The science fair happened in the morning," said Saldern. "It's a competitive science fair for kids across four school districts, all the way from Nakusp to Midway. We had 67 entries for the regional science fair, of those three of the winners are being supported to go to the Canada-wide Science Fair in PEI in May."

Saldern said that every year they send winners to the national science fair, "usually we send two, but this year we're sending three. The winners were Micah May, Miranda Sherell, and Emma Bohri, are all in 8th grade at Trafalgar Middle School in Nelson.

Three Castlegar students placed in the top three at the science fair competition. Ciaran Tanner of Kinnaird Elementary won the gold in the grade 2/3 experiment division for Can Fruit and Vegetables make Power? Jamie Horning and Tara Horning won bronze for their grade 5 project Sugar Rush. Taking bronze in grade 4 research was Sian Spiller-Tisserand for What is a Bald-Faced Hornet?

The Community Science Celebration was a big success with great numbers turning out to check out the booths as well as the three live shows by Science World.

 

"We had approximately 2,000 people show up for it," he said. "It was a fantastic day."