There was lots happening at St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School in Cobourg on Friday, May10, 2024.
A science fair was for Catholic Education Week for grades four to eight. On Friday the gymnasium was full of their projects on display to show to other students and proud parents and family.
Grade seven student Jahleal Sachan (age 13) did his project to prove that wind turbines can not only create energy, but they can also lift items.
The project entailed a fan spinning paper blades that turn, which would lift paperclips.
Sachan said he wanted to do the project because he thought it would be a fun experience. What he didn’t realize was how much work was involved.
“I thought it would be really fun to show people how turbines can lift up stuff.”
With his project he needs wind to spin the blades on the turbine, but he to persevere to get the blades to spin.
After buying a $20 fan, he soon found out it wasn’t powerful enough. With only three days left to the fair he got a “better” fan and things started to get better.
With everything going smoothly, the day before the fair he put on the paperclips to find it his experiment didn’t work.
After three weeks working on the project and even through recess Sachan got the experiment to work, just before the fair started.
“I can play another soccer game, I can play another tournament, but this is something that will affect my mark.”
“It shows wind turbines can not only create energy, it can also lift stuff.”
The grade eight team of Ainsley Boundy and Jessica Kupke made a hydraulic crane powered using syringes, toothpicks and the crane was built out of cardboard.
Water was used for the hydraulics.
Kupke said they made a few mistakes, but got through it and managed to make it work.
“There were a lot of toothpicks that were broken because they were very thin and they kept breaking.”
Grade two and three made items that looked like food and decorated them.
During writing which brought up different food items, so they ended up opening a pretend restaurant called the Barbeque Kids which had burgers, fries and cake.
“All of our art was through a food lens you could say,” added grade two and three teacher Elaine Harp.
“They were really creative – I was really impressed.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
