News

First annual 4-H National Science Fair a success

By Katherine Doyle

Last week the Faculty of Agriculture gave a warm aggie welcome to 17 young scientists, chaperones, and members of 4-H Canada as we hosted the first ever 4-H Canada Science Fair.

 “4-H Canada is proud to be holding the inaugural 4-H Canada Science Fair at Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Agriculture,” said Shannon Benner CEO 4-H Canada. “4-H is known to be a connection hub with agriculture at all levels and by fostering an appetite for Science & Technology in youth and building their confidence to explore scientific ideas and opportunities, we can empower them to adopt science and technology into their everyday thinking and encourage them to make educational and career choices in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.”

Not only did the participants have their projects judged, they also had the chance to show their hard work to the public at the Discovery Centre in Halifax. Our guests were also given a campus tours, and participated in interactive workshops.

“It was very exciting to have these bright, young science minds from across the country on our beautiful campus for the first National 4-H Science Fair,” said Dean David Gray.

“Their curiosity, enthusiasm and love of science is fueled by a mutual desire to learn to do by doing, a philosophy shared by the Faculty of Agriculture," he added. "We hope this is just the beginning of a very fitting partnership.”

A total of 12 projects were presented, ranging in topics from agroponics, to drawing connections between EIA and HIV, to agility. The names of the winners and their projects are as follows:

•             Michael Jones, Ontario – “Soil Your Undies”

•             Signe Caswell, Nova Scotia – “Yogurt”

•             Neleah Lavoie, PEI / Megan Downe, PEI – “Reward vs. Punishment – Which is the better motivator?”

These four winners were selected by a panel of 12 judges. They will move on to the Canada-Wide Science Festival being held this upcoming May 15 to 20, 2016 in Montreal, QC.

Congratulations to All!