 | Home page |  | Text size |  | E-mail this page |
Winning views of nature Fort Smith students honoured for photos by Roberta Bondar Challenge
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 3, 2013
THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
Four high school students in Fort Smith have been honoured for pictures they took last fall in a photography challenge with a former Canadian astronaut.
In September, two Grade 7 and Grade 8 classes from Paul William Kaeser (PWK) High School took part in the Roberta Bondar Challenge at Wood Buffalo National Park's Sweetgrass Station, about 150 kilometres south of Fort Smith in the Alberta section of the park.
The challenge was made all the more special because Bondar herself was at Sweetgrass Station, and she accompanied the students on their nature walks and encouraged them to find new ways of looking at the rivers, trees, grass and sky around them.
The former astronaut provided every participant with a digital camera, and turned them loose to see what sort of inspiring images they could capture.
All the images were then collected and taken back to Toronto, where members of the Roberta Bondar Foundation decided which photographs were the most profound and inspiring. A winner and a runner-up were chosen for each grade.
Miyah-Mae Stewart was the winner for Grade 7, while Giila Gauthier was the runner-up. In Grade 8, Jada Lynn Champagne was the winner and Jewell Tuckey was the runner-up.
"It was really fun," said the 13-year-old Tuckey. "Especially getting to hang out with Roberta Bondar."
Tuckey said she found the challenge very educational, adding, "It really made me think about nature and how we don't really take the time to appreciate it."
The students were rewarded with a set of large books celebrating different facets of nature. The prizes arrived in Fort Smith last week and Wood Buffalo staff held a ceremony at PWK on May 30 to honour the participants and the winners.
The winners and the school also received the four winning photos in frames. The photos are also displayed on the website of the Roberta Bondar Foundation.
Bondar uses photography to encourage youth to capture images in nature that are significant to them and discover new meaning in what they see.
The trip to Sweetgrass Station took place in September.
It was the first time the Roberta Bondar Challenge was held in a national park.
"We were very honoured to have Dr. Bondar choose Wood Buffalo as the first national park to host the Roberta Bondar Challenge," said park superintendent Robert Kent. "Sweetgrass Station is a fantastic natural setting that encourages the kids to ponder their connection to nature, and to be able to share that experience with a Canadian icon like Dr. Bondar was, I think, very special."
| 
