Two student science fair projects to be published

By KENDALL KING, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on November 25, 2021.

kking@medicinehatnews.com

Research belonging to two local students is being published in the Canadian Science Fair Journal.

Daphne Thompson, a Grade 12 student at Eagle Butte High School, focused her project on the different types of fungi found in snow, while Victoria Rooks, a Grade 9 student at Senator Gershaw School, investigated the impact earthworm diets have on soil pH levels.

“Both of these young ladies were working under duress in one respect because we had to do virtual fairs and they had to do their projects, a lot of it, either at home or in my lab with minimal help. So to be able to pull off a good project and then to actually have it accepted for publication in the Canadian Science Fair Journal is exceptional,” Kiwanis Regional Science Fair chair, Dr. Peter Wallis, told the News. “We are very proud of them.”

Hundreds of hours go into each project, Wallis explained, and the publication process takes approximately a year.

“The CSFJ cherry-picks these projects and contacts the students directly and asks them whether they would be interested in preparing their projects for publication in the journal because the format’s quite different,” he said. “They assign an editor to it and the editor helps the student prepare and present their project in the best possible way because it’s all new for them. Then it gets published.”

“The CSFJ is a new thing. We’ve only had a couple years of publication so we’re very pleased that we could get two (projects accepted) in the short time that it’s been up and running, because it’s very competitive,” said Wallis.

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