TVA Elementary student, Callum Yoker, recently cometed at the Canada Wide Science Fair in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
There are 25,000 projects that compete at regional levels across Canada, and the top 460 projects (top 2% in the country) compete at the Canada Wide Science Fair (CWSF). The projects are divided into 3 categories – Junior (grades 7 & 8), Intermediate (grades 9 & 10) and Senior (grades 11 & 12). Of the 460 projects, 153 of them were junior projects.
Callum’s Project was entitled “Manipulating Microbial Membrane Permeability to Dyes: A Preliminary Model for Bacterial Engineering”.
Callum won the following:
Grand Prize - Youth Can Innovate Award - given to the overall top 4 junior projects of the fair (to give you an idea, that is the top 2% of the junior projects at the CWSF, and top 0.04% of the projects across Canada that competed in regional fairs) (this award is also given to the top 6 intermediate projects and top 8 senior projects). The criteria for this is “An exceptionally innovative and original science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) projects that demonstrate a practical application in advancing the economic, medical, social or environmental well-being of society.”
He received $500 cash prize and glass trophy.
Excellence Award – Junior Category – Gold medal
Given to the best junior projects demonstrating excellence in STEM based on a consensus of all the judges relative to all projects in the junior category (this year, 10 golds were given in the junior category of the possible 153 projects)
Gold Medalist - University of Western $4000 Entrance Scholarship
Challenge Award – Junior Health
One challenge award is given to the top project in each one of the following categories: health, discovery, energy, innovation, information, environment, resources.
Callum won the award for best junior project (from the 153 projects overall) in Health for “an outstanding project that best demonstrates or exhibits an increase in our understanding of the human body, or applies science and technology to improve health, control disease, or support an aging population.”
