For the love of science
Repulse Bay hosts Regional Science Fair

Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Mar 17/99) - Bright young scientific minds from across the Keewatin Region will be descending upon Tusarvik school in Repulse Bay next week as that school hosts the Keewatin Regional Science Fair for the first time in school history from March 22-25.

Stan Meredyk is a junior high teacher at Tusarvik school and has been in charge of publicity for the regional fair. He has worked closely throughout the planning stages with fellow teacher Robert Murphy, who organized the event.

"Robert has been here for five years and has been working quite awhile just to get the Regional Science Fair held here," said Meredyk. "Once we knew we'd we hosting it, he's done a lot of work organizing the event, getting signs out in the area and getting participation. He's probably looking more forward to it than I am."

Meredyk says every representative from the various Kivalliq schools will be converging on Repulse Bay for the final regional competition to earn the right to travel to Edmonton, Alberta, in May to compete in the Canada-wide Science Fair.

He says many activities have been mapped out to make Tusarvik's first time hosting the event a memorable one, including trophy awards, various prizes, a big banquet for all the participants at the event's conclusion and trips out on the land with elders and the participating youth.

"It's a whole week full of great activities for the participating students," says Meredyk.

"There are about 30 people coming with their chaperons, so there will be quite a few people in Repulse for most of the week."

Meredyk says hosting the regional event meant quite a lot of planning, including finding billets, planning banquets, meals, schedules and other activities for the students.

"There's a lot of emotion here. A lot of people are really looking forward to hosting the event. We've had participation here locally, but really not as much as we had originally anticipated there would be. But, we expect there will be quite a high-calibre of exhibits coming in from the various representatives."

The Simon Ford Alaittuq high school in Rankin Inlet held its Science Fair last week in preparation for the regional event, with Dawn Huisman's (front page photo) Beat the Beasts being the winning entry.

"My project focused on revealing the amounts of bacteria on human hands and things like doorknobs and how to fix the problem," says Huisman.

The second place project was Andrea McLarty's study on the YK2 computer problem called When Time Expires, while third place went to Melanie Huisman and her project Amazing Rats.

"My rat's name is Nibble Dribble and she's a six-month-old female," says Melanie.

"I did an experiment on the intelligence of rats. I watched to see if she could negotiate a maze. It took her seven minutes on her first attempt, but, after nine tries, she could complete the maze in just 15 seconds."