The Grade 8 English class at Sacred Heart School/École Sacré Coeur has spent the last few months learning how to reduce carbon emissions.
They have studied a world-leading project, conducted experiments and taken the lead on an initiative that could have implications for the city.
And now they have received national recognition.
The students learned in mid-March they were among 11 finalists from across the country in Samsung’s Solve for Tomorrow Challenge. The contest features a nationwide vote in which people can go to the Solve for Tomorrow website at solvefortomorrow.ca, watch the three-minute video the school submitted and vote for the school of their choice.
The deadline to vote is April 18. People can vote once per email address.
Christa Walton, who is the teacher of the Grade 8 English class, submitted the classroom’s bid. The Grade 8s effort is part of Sacred Heart’s desire to see students embrace science and technology.
“One of our goals is to increase our technology use and our 21st century skills, so our principal (April Hilstrom) found out about the contest and relayed it to me,” Walton told Lifestyles in an interview.
As part of the competition, the students studied the carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at the Boundary Dam Power Station, and found out how the project is slashing carbon emissions. A plant manager and a chemist from Boundary Dam explained the project to the students.
The students wanted to learn more about CCS because it has been in the news a lot, and they discussed carbon emissions during conversations on sustainability.
“We started out by thinking we were just going to research clean coal, thinking that technology, combined with the idea of STEM, with science, technology, energy and math … was going to, pretty much, be our project,” said Walton.
“But as we got into that, we thought ‘That’s not really us solving the problem, that’s us looking at how SaskPower is solving it.’”
The students broke into groups, and looked at finding the math behind carbon emissions. Other students experimented with how they could reduce their own emissions.
“When we looked at the project, we realized we’re missing that part of us engineering something, so another group of students took on how you would create your own filter,” said Walton. “We’ve looked at how to filter water and other stuff before.”
They tested different products to see which household items would filter carbon better than others.
Students also promoted the school as an idle-free zone, and encouraged motorists to turn their engines off when parked in front of the school.
Their ideas and findings were presented to Hilstrom, the staff, the student body, retiring Estevan MLA Doreen Eagles and Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig.
Walton believes they have come up with a project that resonates with people. Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall used his social media accounts to encourage people to vote for Sacred Heart.
“We didn’t know it would go this big,” said Walton. “We were pretty excited just to get that far.”
Their participation in the Solve for Tomorrow contest has turned into a lesson on social media and how it can be used to promote a cause.
Grade 8 students Rylan Trobert and Reid Waldegger said they were stunned when they found out they were among the 11 national finalists.
“We are trying to reduce carbon emissions around the world, and we researched things we could do to stop it,” said Reid.
Reid and Rylan noted the students took a keen interest in the experiments, as they wanted to know which household products would serve as the best filter for carbon dioxide (CO2). Salt water and charcoal did the best job.
“We would pour the item, and pump CO2 into a CO2 tube monitor through a tube,” said Rylan.
He was surprised the salt water did so well, while the success of charcoal met expectations.
They are also pleased to find out Ludwig wants to bring forward some form of a bylaw to prevent vehicles from idling in front of schools and other areas.
“It made us realize we were doing a good job with what we had, and if we kept going forward with it, we could do something big,” said Rylan.
Rylan added it shows the class how their project is affecting others and getting policy-makers to take action.
Walton has been thrilled with the response thus far, and she is encouraging people to vote for Sacred Heart. Not only has their Solve for Tomorrow entry proven to be a great learning experience that has benefitted the school and could benefit the community, it was a team effort, as everyone contributed something to the project and the video.
The Grade 8s were selected as one of 55 semifinalists from across the country in late December. Once they reached the semifinal round, they received an 8-4-inch Samsung S tablet, a Google play card worth $50 and a camera to create the video that helped them reach the final.
Most of their work and research was conducted in January and February.
A few days after their entry was selected as a finalist, the school received $20,000 in Samsung classroom technology, with ten 10-inch tablets, 25 eight-inch tablets and six 8.4-inch tablets. The tablets can be accessed by the entire school, and Samsung requested the tablets be used to enhance science, technology, energy and math skills among the students.
Samsung will award two grand prizes through the Solve for Tomorrow competition. One will go to the school that receives the most votes, and the other will be for the jurors’ pick as the top entry in the contest. Those two schools will each receive $50,000 in Samsung technology, and they will host a celebratory event with Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown, who created the YouTube channel AsapSCIENCE.
The grand prize winners will be announced on April 25.
