Baker Lake (Apr 25/05) - Shawna Sammurtok of Victor Sammurtok school in Chesterfield Inlet took top spot in the annual Kivalliq Regional Science Fair in Baker Lake earlier this month.

Her project, Inuit Climate Control: A comparison of traditional and modern parkas, beat out 29 students.

This marked the third year in a row students from Chesterfield Inlet took the fair's top prize.

The team of Teal Kreuger and Andrew Cooper of Jonah Amitnaaq school in Baker Lake took second spot with their effort, Matoo: We've got you covered: An ice fishing hole-cover investigation.

Paula Rumbolt and Emma Kreuger, also of Baker, took third place for their effort, What insulates best?: A comparison of different insulators.

Team Kivalliq will now be represented at the Canada-wide Science Fair in Vancouver, B.C., by Sammurtok, Cooper, Rumbolt and Teal Kreuger.

Jim Kreuger is a program consultant for the Department of Education's School Operations in Baker.

He said every judge at the 2005 fair was impressed with both the overall quality of the projects and the knowledge of the participants.

"The right to travel to the national fair is one of the biggest draws of the weekend," said Kreuger.

"But there's far more to the science fair than just the judging of the projects.

"The students were placed on inter-community teams and participated in science teamwork and problem-solving activities throughout the weekend."

Many activities

Kreuger said among the activities the students enjoyed were soccer, basketball, ice fishing, iglu building and a cardboard qamutik race.

He said the highlight of the extracurricular events was the McGyver Science Challenge.

"The students were immersed in a world of espionage and intrigue as they tried to locate and retrieve a pair of special eggs from an acid pit, then make their escape through a radiation maze.

"Most survived the experience and everyone enjoyed it."

The science fair is sponsored by the Kivalliq Science Educators Community, with support from Kivalliq Partners in Development and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.