CHESTERFIELD INLET/KIVALLIQ
Students from six of seven Kivalliq communities participated in a fun-filled and traditionally themed Kivalliq Regional Science Fair at Victor Sammurtok School in Chesterfield Inlet from March 24 to 26.

Student Kyler Kabvitok and elder Louis Autut work together making a pana (snow knife) at the Kivalliq Regional Science Fair at at Victor Sammurtok School in Chesterfield Inlet this past month. - photo courtesy of Glen Brocklebank

The fair also produced its fair share of excitement on the projects front, with two students - Kimberly Tanuyak of Chesterfield Inlet and William Campbell of Arviat - finishing in an absolute tie for first place for the first time in the regional fair's history.

Tanuyak and Campbell will be part of the Kivalliq delegation that will attend the 56th edition of the annual Canada-wide Science Fair in Regina, Sask., from May 14 to 20, along with teacher Rob Humby of Chester, second-place winners Edwin Aggark and Louie Kukkiak of Chester, and Arviat teacher Kelsey Nickel.

A total of 40 people stayed at the school during the fair, which attracted eight students and two teachers from Arviat, three students and one teacher from Rankin Inlet, four students, one teacher and Kivalliq School Operations program consultant Jim Kreuger from Baker Lake, four students and two teachers from Naujaat, and four students and one teacher from Coral Harbour, in addition to the eight students and two teachers from the host Chester.

For the second year in a row, the regional science fair did not have any students from Inuglak School in Whale Cove take part.

The theme of this year's fair was Traditional Knowledge: On The Cutting Edge Of Science, complete with a logo of an Inuk cutting snow blocks for an iglu.

In addition to the main fair itself and project judging to advance to the Canada-wide Science Fair soon, the regional fair featured traditional activities such as iglu building and pana (snow knife) making, which every student reportedly enjoyed taking part in.

Each student and teacher at the fair got to make their own pana, as well as sew their own sheath for the knife. They had their choice of sealskin or leather for the pana's sheath.

Fair co-host Glen Brocklebank said the host school wanted to play to its students' strengths of using their traditional knowledge and making things while hosting the event.

He said community elders Casmir Kriterdluk and Louis Autut were brought in to lend their support by helping each student make their pana.

"We also had a sewer come in to help us sew, and we had every student go outside to cut at least five snow blocks for the iglu," said Brocklebank.

"A lot of the students who came told me they had never cut blocks for an iglu before.

"It was a nice combination of helping them create their tool, and then showing them how to properly use it.

"It was a great exercise in connecting culture to science, and having them recognize everything is connected."

Brocklebank said the traditional aspects of the science fair went over very well with the visiting students.

He said the fair successfully played to the strengths of the community, school staff members and students, while having visiting students leave with something tangible from the event that they had made themselves.

"We really wanted to link things together at this fair, and we accomplished that.

"The project judging was incredible, with the top two projects having identical actual and ordinal scores.

"It really was quite incredible to see two projects be tied after all statistical analysis were completed."

The two winning schools worked out an agreement that the championship trophy will go to Arviat, where it will remain for most of the current school year.

Then, just before the end of the school year, it will be returned to Victor Sammurtok School in Chester, where it will remain until it's brought to the 2018 regional science fair.

After being away for a year on educational leave, Brocklebank said he wouldn't deny it felt great to have a Chester student share the top at this year's fair.

He said he really enjoys the science fair process, which he missed while away for the year.

"Science fair activities are much more difficult to schedule than doing lecture-style teaching in the class, where everyone's doing the same thing.

"But, what I like about it is, our students get to pick a topic or area of interest that they want to learn more about.

"And then they, in turn, become the expert of that area, so the idea of project-based learning where they get to investigate something we may not have covered in the curriculum becomes their independent focus that they work on to learn more about.

"So, as a teacher, you have 20 groups of students going in different directions, which can be challenging to manage day-to-day, but, in the end, it's an incredible feeling to watch these students find self-motivation to learn, become more responsible for their own learning, asking questions and seeking to define the answers to those questions."

Brocklebank said the fair produced six or seven Level 3 projects, as well as the two Level 3-4 projects that tied for first.

He said all of those projects deserve high praise for the amount of work the students put into them.

"They were really high-level projects that, based on our judging criteria, met higher standards of inquiry and scientific method in terms of data analysis, sample-size, collections what they were trying to do and how they interpreted the data.

"And, with many of these projects, we get to see kids trying things that are relevant to our environment.

"These are skills that can be transferred to land skills, to knowing how things go together, to even just knowing how something feels.

"Not a single person left their pana or their sheath

when leaving the fair, so that speaks volumes as to what

the students themselves take out of the traditional elements and how they feel about something they have made with own their own hands and knowledge."

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