Prairie South Students Test Skills as Shipwrights

 Published: Saturday, 01 June 2019 06:54

 Written by Hayley Hart

 Grade eight students became shipwrights this week.

Students from rural Saskatchewan and local schools within the Praire South School Division took over the Kinsmen Sportsplex on Thursday and Friday for an exciting hands-on learning day to go along with their studying of buoyancy.

“They have to create a boat that will make it across the pool out of cardboard, only using duck tape, string, Exacto knives, and a paper clip. They come with their designs, they come with their prototypes, they come with all their ideas and then for two hours they’re given the materials set forth and create a boat that’s going to get them across,” explained Career Development Consultant for the Prairie South School Division, Brett Young. “They come here, they develop their stuff. It’s so exciting for us to see the process that they’re coming in with and then how engaged they are in what they’re creating. For two hours we don’t hear a peep from them, they’re quiet, and they’re doing their thing. When we finally get to the pool, they get in there and then they can test to see if it actually works.”

Zain Kashif of Sunningdale School was one of the many students participating on Day 2, he explained the many factors he and his team had to take into consideration during the planning and development phases.

“The one thing I learned was to make a triangle at the front of your boat, the bow of your boat should be shaped like a triangle so it can cut through the water then you can move quicker and more efficiently,” added Kashif.

Nigel Fang of the Beach Boys team who was also from Sunningdale school said they were taking their lessons from the classroom and directly implementing them into the construction phase.

“We’re cutting corners so that the measurements are exactly even because boats have to be exactly even to be able to float because of buoyant forces. It has to travel through the water quickly and you want all sides to be even (and) you have to disperse your mass evenly.”

There were about 20 races each day across the shallow end of the pool at the Kinsmen Sportsplex where students were able to test out their products and cheer each other on the finish line.

Young also noted that this day is not only an exciting hands-on learning opportunity for the kids, it also gives them a chance to meet others from around the province and compete against them in a friendly environment.

“You have schools from all over the place like Mankota, Gravelbourg, LaFleche, all these rural schools and the city schools they get to come together. Some of these students have never seen each other before, they spend the entire day doing the same learning but they’re meeting students from other schools.”

The two hundred students who participated in the Prairie South School Division’s Cardboard Boat Races for 2019 only had two hours to boats before letting them set sail in the pool for the competition.

Congratulations to two of our CES teams who placed 1st and 3rd!!

Caronport Wins Trophy at 5th Annual Global Warning Awards

 Published: Friday, 31 May 2019 16:21

 Written by Hayley Hart

Students from Moose Jaw and Caronport gathered at the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery for the fifth annual Global Warning Awards on Thursday. It’s an event hosted by the AXIS and Youth Advisory Committees, that encourages schools to collect litter and create art pieces out of their findings.

After spending the past few weeks collecting trash, local schools are finally able to show off their hard work in a creative way.

Garbage-derived art can now be seen at the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery for the next little while. The artworks were created by high school and elementary school students from Moose Jaw and Caronport as part of the annual Global Warning event.

Students and teachers attended the awards ceremony on Thursday at the art gallery, and certificates were handed out in various categories.

“When the kids came in today they all ran into their art piece and was super excited about it. I think it’s a good thing, them getting to see that their work is appreciated,” explained Nikola Orescanin, a Grade 11 student at Peacock Collegiate and Youth Advisory Committee member. “For us, we really care about global warming and not littering and to have little kids in elementary school work on these art pieces, it shows that they care and then they grow up to care too. It’s kind of like putting the idea of good disposal of garbage in their heads and it helps for the future.”

The Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) organized the entire event this year, with help from the AXIS committee who was a partner in establishing the tradition.

“This is something different that we don’t get to do,” said Grace Kiefer from Vanier Collegiate, whose art piece is now on display. “It shows us that there is a lot of garbage and a lot of it can be reused.”

One of the schools at the awards ceremony was École St. Margaret’s, and they took home the title of Junior Best Overall.

“École St. Margaret students were very excited to participate in the 5th Annual Global Warning Initiative. Students from Grade 1 to Grade 8 collected approximately 350 lbs of garbage around the St. Margaret’s neighbourhood. 
Students from Kindergarten through Grade 6 then began work using the found items to create a sea turtle after being inspired by a book called The Brave Little Turtle, by Gill McBarnet. 
The story describes the life journey of a sea turtle that becomes entangled in a piece of plastic garbage and is unsuccessful in removing the plastic itself or with the help of its sea friends. In the end, the turtle is freed with the help of “little humans” who “were sad and ashamed to think that such carelessness (was) hurting many sea creatures.”

The art project came together very quickly, with a team of excited and creative students.”

Taking over the 5th annual Global Warning event was a perfect fit for the YAC committee as they’ve spent the past few years being strong advocates in our city to implement more environmentally conscious strategies, such as hoping to help the city make a move away from plastic bags.

“We don’t want the garbage on our streets. We want it to be disposed of in a proper way. To create something out of that using people’s creative abilities, it has a lot of potential, it has a lot of potential to become a community spread event that people can take part in and participate in. It really makes us happy when we receive all these art pieces,” said Grade 12 student at Central Collegiate and YAC member Lucas Dyck.

Now that the Global Warning Awards have been running for a few years and some of the YAC members will be returning next year, Dyck says their hope is to have the 6th annual bigger and better, as well as extending the invitation to participate even further.

“We hope that over the next few years this is going to gain even more popularity. We really want to push the fact that we want all schools doing this, we want community groups to be doing this, maybe even private places can submit art pieces as well. There’s really no limits because when it comes to something like this when it’s creating art out of garbage, we want as much garbage to be collected [as possible].”

Caronport Students Have a Successful Harvest

Published: Saturday, 08 September 2018 12:56

Written by Bryce Johnson

Photos courtesy of Cindy Smith.

As gardeners and farmers are all busy harvesting, so were students at Caronport Elementary School.

In May last school year, students planted a garden in their schoolyard in a fenced in area that staff gave up so students could use it. Starting out with nothing, they got the ground prepared, purchased planter boxes, and planted tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, carrots, beats and many other vegetables.

Over the summer, many students, parents, and staff volunteered to water and upkeep the garden, making it the success it was.

Cindy Smith teaches at the school and got the garden started thanks to a grant for the project.

“All I had to do was to apply for a grant for Nutrients for Life, and Nutrients for Life is a program to promote learning in Canadian schools on topics such as modern agriculture, gardening, plant growth, nutrition, nutrients role in food production and health and sustainability for the development of a Nutrients for Life garden,” Smith explained.

In the end, Smith had received a $3000 grant for the garden. The high school also got a grant for $500 which they gave to the elementary school. Giving them a total of $3500 to build and plant the whole garden.

As part planting and maintaining the garden, Education Coordinator with Nutrients for Life, Ray Cochrane, visited the school to talk about his organization and the importance of gardening.

This past Wednesday, they began harvesting everything that was grown. Even with students taking some of the produce home and other people being handed what they grew, they still have plenty left over. Smith said they plan to have a low cost farmers market to sell the veggies to the community.

“It was a really big community project and so it went so well that we are going to make it bigger for next year,” Smith said. “We’re actually going to expand it outside of the area and we’re gonna have pumpkin patches and cucumber patches, because the pumpkins kind of took over in the little area that we had them in, and the kids loved it.”

Smith said it also worked perfectly with her classes science unit since it included lessons on plant life.

 

 

Heritage Fair Takes Over WDM

Category: Local News

 Published: Friday, 20 April 2018 11:38

 Written by Bryce Johnson

MJMHA City Champions Crowned