Avoiding the yolk
Naujaat students enjoy, excel at annual SET Challenge
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
NAUJAAT
The annual Science Engineering and Technology (SET) Challenge remains a popular program with students at Tuugaalik High School in Naujaat.
Teacher Pat McClure performs an egg experiment as student Kenneth Katokra looks on during the SET Challenge at Tuugaalik High School in Naujaat last month. - photo courtesy of Julia MacPherson |
Tuugaalik held its 2016 SET Challenge this past month, with a number of students avoiding cracking up over the results of their experiments, with the focus revolving around eggs.
Grade 6 students from Tusarvik Elementary School joined students in Grades 7 to 12 at Tuugaalik for the event, resulting in about 100 students taking the challenge.
Teacher Jen Chicarella said students had an hour to work on their projects in groups of three or four.
She said once the projects were completed, the students went to the gym to give them a test run and record the results.
"This year's focus on eggs went over very well with the students, who had a lot of fun with the challenge," said Chicarella.
"Some of them were actually surprised by how well they did with their project.
"Our students are always excited when they get to do a hands-on project, so they were really into the SET Challenge.
"Naujaat students are quite strong working with their hands to create something, so they did really well with the challenge."
The various challenge winners received certificates of achievement and new water bottles for their efforts.
This year's challenge saw five teams from within the high school tie for first place in the egg bungie jump.
The students had to get the egg to go as close to the gym floor as possible without breaking, and all five teams managed to have the egg actually just tap the floor without breaking.
Student names were randomly drawn for a number of other prizes up for grabs during the event.
Chicarella said many of the Naujaat students look forward to the SET Challenge every year.
She said the event rotates its theme from year to year, and some of the students remembered doing the egg challenge when they were younger.
"It's a different challenge for each age group, so, even though they worked on a project with the same theme in an earlier grade, it would have been a different challenge.
"And, of course, the challenges get more difficult as the students get older.
"Doing hands-on science is how the students benefit most from the SET Challenge, because that's not always easy to do in the classroom every day.
"It's a challenge to work together and see the project all the way through in one hour, because it takes good teamwork and communication, but our students really excel at it."
