Students Showcase Winning Science Projects at Cariboo-Mainline Regional Science Fair

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Story provided by Chelsea Isenor, Director of Communications and Board Administration

Earlier this week, Kamloops-Thompson School District students gathered with students from other districts at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) to showcase their winning science projects at the Cariboo-Mainline Regional Science Fair.

This annual science fair brings together students from several neighbouring school districts. This year’s fair included 140 students from the Cariboo-Chilcotin (SD27) Nicola-Similkameen (SD58), and Kamloops-Thompson (SD73) school districts, with 74 SD73 students attending from 13 schools across the District. Students in attendance represented the highest finishing 10% of projects at the school and classroom level.

On March 31, 2025, students presented their projects during advanced judging. On April 1, 2025, students were able to connect with each other, participate in activities and demonstrations, explore each other's projects, and vote for the Student Choice Award. Parents and caregivers were then invited to attend a public viewing and awards ceremony that afternoon.

Student displays showcased a variety of topics, including projects and experiences on brain rot, AI, green energy, germ warfare, tooth decay, home remedies for acne, the speed of thought, volcanoes, phone germs, wind power, fermentation, humans vs AI, a ping pong catapult, and more.

Gunnar Koehn, a Grade 9 student from Valleyview Secondary School, explored how students can use AI ethically in education with his project, ‘The Daylight Framework’. Through a literature review, student survey, and various research, Gunnar outlined four key values to help guide students in using AI, including Intent, Balance, Verifiability, and Transparency. Last year, Gunnar won a Bronze Excellence Award at the Canada Wide Science Fair (CWSF), when asked about that experience he said, “It was a ton of fun… it was a really incredible experience to be exposed to incredibly smart people doing really cool things.”

Grade 7 Summitt Elementary student Sreenand Shajil Kumar did a ‘Tooth Decay Egg Experiment’, testing how common beverages affect and erode tooth enamel. After testing soda, juice, coffee, wine, water, milk and pickle juice, Sreenand found the worst culprit to be wine, saying “it turned the eggshell almost pitch black.”

Kaia Pederson, a Grade 6 student from Bert Edwards Science and Technology School (BEST) explored the questions ‘How Do Volcanoes Affect the Environment Around Them?’ When asked about her project, Kaia said, “My project is about volcanoes, how lava flows and how fast it can flow, and how some volcanoes explode rather than erupt with lava. When I started, I knew the basics of how a volcano erupts but I learned a lot. I made the volcano base because I wanted to show people how liquid lava can flow down a slope and because it's fun.”

Isobelle Reid, a Grade 7 student from BEST, presented a project on ‘The Speed a Thought’ about reaction time and how distractions affect different age groups, using cat videos as part of her distraction experiment. When asked what inspired her project, Isobelle shared, “I’m a competitive swimmer and I always wondered why some people can get off the blocks to the starting gun so much faster than others. The more I researched, I started to get more interested in distracted driving and how that can cause accidents. I learned that distraction has a very big impact on your focus no matter what you’re doing, and for 15-20 seconds after you've been distracted, you still won't be able to fully focus on the task at hand. I was very surprised to learn that the youngest groups were least affected by the distraction and the oldest groups, ages 30 and up, were the most distracted.”

During the Awards Ceremony, Cariboo-Mainline Regional Science Fair organizers awarded students with participation, bronze, silver, and gold medals, and handed out thousands of dollars worth of cash prizes, awards, and scholarships to students with winning projects. Top students have an opportunity to go on to the national Canada-Wide Science Fair happening later in the spring. This year, Joel DeFouw (Grade 7 at Juniper Ridge Elementary School) and Banjamin Stroich (Grade 9 at South Kamloops Secondary School) from SD73 have qualified for nationals.