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Some of the smartest kids in the country are in Regina to showcase their scientific findings.
The Canada-Wide Science Fair is in Regina for the first time in 20 years.
Nearly 450 students in grades seven to 12 are at the University of Regina to show off their science projects.
Students had to participate in regional fairs in order to qualify for the national event.
Fiona Nicholson is a grade 10 student from New Glasgow, P.E.I., and she is competing in her first national fair.
Her project was on the differences between extroverts and introverts when it comes to picking sports.
Her findings revealed that both groups actually have a preference of team contact sports.
She said she was surprised when she found out she would be going to the national fair.
“Many of the projects here are chemical, psychical innovation kind of sciences,” Nicholson said. “I was quite shocked that my social science project was able to get to this kind of level of competition so I’m just excited to be here.”
Gavin Johns is a grade seven student from La Ronge, Sask.
His project that got him into the national fair was on how reliable eyewitness accounts are depending on how intense the situation was.
Johns had two actors act out situations, one calm and one with intensity, and ask people two weeks later what they remembered.
“My conclusion was eyewitness are a lot more reliable in a calm scenario.”
He says in high-intensity situations the brain releases a chemical which affects long-term and short-term memory.
He had to travel four hours just to compete in his regional fair.
“Everybody was super proud of me, my parents were super proud of me,” Johns said. “I felt really good about myself.”
For Annie McLeod, getting into the Canada-Wide Science Fair has been a year in the making.
“I started my project last year, two days after our regional science fair because I really wanted to go to Canada-Wide and then I didn’t make it last year so I knew that I wanted to come this year,” McLeod said.
Her project involved taking brown algae, which is in abundance in her hometown of Victoria, B.C., taking the dyes from it and using solar energy to turn them into a power source, creating a dye sensitized solar cell.
For her it was a “dream come true” to take part in the national fair.
The fair is open to the public until Saturday.
