The Heritage Fair is a nationwide program involving students in grades six through 10.

As the name would suggest, the program provides students with an interesting opportunity to learn about their own culture and heritage.

Alaittuq High teacher Sue Diederichs says this marks the second year students at the school have participated in the fair.

"Grade 9A students took part in this year's fair, while Grade 9B students took part in the inaugural event during the 2001-02 school year," says Diederichs.

"The Heritage Fair program is especially valuable to our students because it gives them a chance to learn about Inuit traditional culture.

"Although, I must point out, not all the students did their projects on traditional culture."

A total of 17 students took part in this year's fair.

Their projects ranged from the traditional uses of caribou, to traditional foods, Inuit games and family trees.

Other topics covered included the comparison of Scottish music and dancing with that of Inuit song and dance, as well as Rankin's deaf culture and Inuit stories and belief.

The projects are judged at the local level.

The top two selected are then entered into the regional fair, which is hosted on the Internet.

This year's Alaittuq High winners were Reanna Sateana and Kerri Tattuinee for their project, The Uses of the Arctic Caribou, and Kelly McLarty for her effort, My Family Tree.

The winner of the regional fair represents Nunavut at the National Heritage Fair, which will be held in Sudbury, Ontario, in mid-July of 2003.

The regional fair will be hosted this coming April.

Diederichs says the students also get the benefit of having their project account for 10 per cent of their overall Social Studies mark.

"The students really seem to enjoy working on their projects for the Heritage Fair.

"They each take a turn making a brief presentation in the classroom on their project, before they're put on display and judged.

"They all did really great and, more importantly, they seemed to get a lot out of it and that's always nice to see."