South Colchester Academy is one of two schools to win Samsung Canada’s Solve for Tomorrow contest.
The Brookfield school and Gordon Graydon High, in Mississauga, Ont., will each receive a $50,000 technology grant.
“We won with voting,” said teacher Lauchie MacKinnon. “There are two parts; the judges chose one winning video and the one with the most votes also wins.
“This is absolutely unreal. We couldn’t win this without the community. We want to celebrate our victory but we also want to show there is a community behind us. This has really been a team effort.”
The Grade 7 students at South Colchester Academy applied lessons from class to find a way of preventing a local stream from flooding their soccer field. They did research and then planted vegetation under the direction of MacKinnon and science teacher Ted Fitzgerald. Their project was chosen as one of 11 finalists (They were awarded $20,000 worth of technology for making it that far) and members of the public could vote for their favourite.
MacKinnon spoke to students on Wednesday, telling them their video didn’t win but congratulating them on their work. Then, he added they did win on voting.
“The crowd went wild,” said Karla O’Leary, vice-principal. “There was a big roar. We’re all excited and we’ve been sitting on this news since last Monday (April 25), which was really hard.”
Samsung will be sending a representative to the school to see what technology they need.
YouTube presenters Mitchell Moffitt and Greg Brown, of AsapSCIENCE, will visit the winning schools for a celebration where students can share information about their project. The projects will then be featured in an AsapTHOUGHT video.
The original article on the project can be seen at http://www.trurodaily.com/News/Local/2016-03-24/article-4477074/South-Colchester-students-work-on-flood-prevention%2C-win-prizes/1 .
