Fernie Academy students joined aspiring young minds from around the world at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Edmonton from May 14 to 19.
Emma Harrington, Isla Barron, Peighten Catsirelis and Annaliese Froehler, presented their scientific projects at the event, alongside other Canadians and students from Thailand and Mexico.
Their projects won gold in the East Kootenay Regional Science Fair in March in their respective age categories, which advanced them to the national competition.
There were five days of judging at the national fair and one day of public viewing. Although none of the girls collected a medal in the final leg of the competition, they found value in the experience.
Emma Harrington, 17, constructed a prototype of a portable fire extinguisher that could be used for hiking and camping.
Her experiment involved testing an On-the-Go extinguisher — a product currently available on the market — and making improvements to its design.
Harrington often carries an On-the-Go with her when she camps and hikes in case a campfire gets out of hand, but she has never actually had to use it in an emergency. She did test the device during an experiment however, and she found the trigger was difficult to pull and that not all of the CO2 released.
“It would hurt to pull, just because it was a piece of metal,” she said.
She lit a few controlled fires in pits in her backyard in order to compare the two devices.
“Although the fires were being extinguished, the embers weren’t cooling down, so there was still that chance of the fire relighting,” she added.
She constructed a new trigger using a 3D printer and she added a sleeve to her model to reduce the risk of frostbite when Co2 is ejected.
“With the 3D printed design it’s more comfortable to use. It’s lightweight. It’s smaller … I wanted to add in a sleeve just to give people protection from frostbite rather than having to carry gloves and the portable fire extinguisher.”
Harrington has family members who were impacted by the wildfires in Fort McMurray and this was the inspiration behind her project.
“I was thinking about what I could do to help with the forest fire situation. Family members of mine and close people in my life have been affected by forest fires and have needed to evacuate from their homes, so I wanted to make something to prevent more people from having to do that.”
READ MORE: Mount Baker student showing scientific invention at Canada-Wide Science Fair
Isla Barron, 16, developed a theoretical concept rather than a device. She created a scheme for recycling clothing based on Return-It’s system for plastics, paper and bottles.
“A lot of my generation, we wear whatever’s new and trendy at that time. When we’re done with it and it’s not considered cool anymore, we’ll just throw it away and that’s really harmful for the environment so I thought I’d try and make a system that would prevent this,” she explained.
Like Return-It, her system would be deposit-based. A small deposit would be charged on clothing, that would be refunded to the buyer when it is recycled.
Higher-end or lightly-used clothing could be sent to thrift stores, while damaged or worn clothing could be repurposed to make household objects or entirely new outfits.
A similar project was launched in Vancouver in 2019, but it shut down because its limited network of organizations — which it supplied clothes to — couldn’t keep up with the demand. Barron investigated how this network could expand to ensure the project is more sustainable in the long-term.
Peighten Catsirelis and Annaliese Froehler, 13, teamed up to test how effective different types of sea walls are at protecting populations from tsunamis.
They used a foam mat to create a slope in a large plastic container and filled it with water. Then they created sea walls out of different kinds of materials — fish pebbles, a wooden board and piece of pipe. The pipe worked best, which they attributed to the fact that it was curved rather than straight.
“With the rocks, we found that the water just went right over them. With the straight wood wall, the water temporarily slowed down. The curved wall, it deflected the water back,” said Catsirelis.
“It’s been really fun,” she added.
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