Even though they weren’t one of the two national champions, the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition was still a great experience for the Grade 8 English class at Sacred Heart School/École Sacré Coeur in Estevan.
Sacred Heart was one of 11 national finalists in the competition, which encourages students to consider how to reduce carbon emissions. They studied the carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Power Station, evaluated household products that could filter out carbon emissions, and helped get their school declared as an idle-free zone.
For their efforts, the school received $20,000 in Samsung classroom technology, with ten 10-inch tablets, 25 eight-inch tablets and six 8.4-inch tablets. Samsung requested the tablets be used to enhance science, technology, energy and math learning among the students.
The Grade 8 English class was informed on Tuesday that a school in Ontario and another in Nova Scotia were the winners of the competition. But they still learned a lot in the last few months.
“We started off thinking we’re just going to do this little project, we’re going to research clean coal and we’re going to put in our video,” said teacher Christa Walton. “And it went so far beyond that.”
They learned about the science and the engineering of the CCS project.
“Kids were doing stuff on computers,” said Walton. “They were making graphs that I don’t even know how they did. It was really cool. You couldn’t have planned it.”
Students also found out how to get experts and community leaders to support their idle-free zone concept. Mayor Roy Ludwig has told them he would like to eliminate idling in certain areas of the city, and so a bylaw to limit vehicle idling could be coming in the future.
The young people have noticed idle-free zones around the community, and Walton said that’s a very satisfying feeling for the students.
The community was very supportive throughout the competition. Many people went online and voted for the project. Walton said they don’t know how many votes they received, or where they finished, but they know they received a lot of votes.
She knew people within the school community would back their project. But it went beyond the school and the community. Premier Brad Wall encouraged the public to vote for Sacred Heart.
“We had other community members who would contact their companies, so they sent out company emails to get voting for us,” said Walton.
Businesses in Calgary received emails asking for them to vote for the school.
“It was a whole new lesson in the positive side of social media, and how to get the word out,” said Walton.
As for the technology, the Grade 8s have enjoyed using the tablets, and have instructed other students how to use them. It will serve as another lasting legacy of the students’ participation in the project.
