Two Central Alberta schools are looking to become part of a new world record on Friday.
École Mother Teresa School in Sylvan Lake and Red Deer’s St. Francis of Assisi Middle School have joined 84 others in the nationwide quest for the Guinness World Record for the largest simultaneous science lesson.
At 11 a.m. Mountain time, thousands of students of all ages will begin a paper airplane lesson, exploring gravity and atmosphere by building three different planes, one suitable for Earth, one for the moon and one for Mars. The lesson and three experiments are set to take 30 minutes, to be followed by a discussion.
“We heard about it through an email from central office and myself and a Grade 8 teacher thought it would be a unique opportunity to bring a couple different groups of students together in a science environment,” Michelle Frunchak, a Grade 6 teacher at St. Francis said. “It’s also to generate more buzz and excitement around the field of science.”
As far as Frunchak knows, it’s the first time the school is participating in a world record event. It’s the same situation at Mother Teresa, said principal Dorice Swensrude.
“The students are excited. They enjoy hands-on activities and they read the Guinness World Record books,” Frunchak said.
About 300 students in Grades 6 and 8 will be taking part from St. Francis, as well as the entire student body (420 students) from Mother Teresa.
Canadian Space Agency Astronaut David Saint-Jacques will join participants at one of the top five locations with the largest number of participants.
The event also serves as the official launch of the 2013 national science and technology week, which is seven days dedicated to raising awareness about “the importance of science and technology in today’s world” and celebrating “Canada’s historic and ongoing role as a leader in innovation,” says the government of Canada’s official science portal, science.gc.ca.
Canada set the world record last year for the “largest practical science lesson at multiple venues” when experiments demonstrating the Bernoulli principle were performed simultaneously at 88 locations, including classrooms, science centres and museums from British Columbia to Newfoundland. The experiments involved a total of 13,701 participants.
rfrancoeur@www.reddeeradvocate.com