An unusual science competition took place at Western Canada High School on Monday that challenged students to complete ten tasks to save a fictitious science superhero from a super sneaky science villain.
“Heroes & Villains: A Science Decathlon” is in its third year and students from nine Calgary schools including, A.E. Cross, Bishop Pinkham, Calgary Arts Academy, Connect Charter, Elboya, Fairview, Langevin, Louis Riel, Valley Creek, were invited to the fast-paced race around WCHS.
Teams of four completed a decathlon of science-related tasks to free a kidnapped science superhero that was poisoned by an evil villain.
“Each of the tasks is interactive, engaging, they need some teamwork, they’re seeing real world applications of science. Purposes of actually completing science tasks and each of the tasks give them a clue to a bigger puzzle and they then have a mystery task where they have to ultimately determine the location of a superhero and the identity of a villain that has captured the superhero,” said Caitlin Jensen, WCHS Science Club Staff Adviser.
The budding super scientists did precipitation tests to determine the villain’s blood type and also used microscopes and magnifiers to figure out the villain’s hair colour.
The groups of students used magnets and verbal directions to guide ball bearings through a large maze, which helped them to determine how much antidote the superhero needed.
“It’s to get students excited and engaged with science-related ideas and get them to see that when they’re exploring concepts, hands-on, they get more out of it. The other thing that’s nice about it is these tasks are eight-minute tasks so they know if they’ve completed it correctly right away,” said Jensen.
The schools that participated are feeder schools for WCHS so the competition also gives students a chance to familiarize themselves with the facility.
