Rossella Bagnato, Interim Director of Education for the Sudbury Catholic District School Board visited St. Francis Catholic School on Thursday to view a number of interesting and unique projects at the Board’s annual Science Fair.

Mrs. Bagnato reviewed Cortnie Pinard’s and Maddie Dempster’s Science Fair Project, In A Cat’s Eye. The purpose of the project was to determine “why cats pupils change and what effect, if any, does this change have on their vision.” The girls’ hypothesis was that “the beams of light are directed into the cat’s eyes and change the size of the pupils.” The young scientists also informed Mrs. Bagnato that cats can see 90 percent better than humans can in the dark and they can also see in colour, except red.

Zachary Sarmatiuk, a Grade 7 student at St. Francis Catholic School made a presentation to Vice Principal Cassandra MacGregor and Rossella Bagnato regarding the effect of “winglets on airplanes.” The purpose of Zachary’s experiment was to determine if the “winglets” placed on tips of the wings of three different paper airplanes (at various angles) would increase the length of their flight. Zachary’s results indicated that with a wider-winged plane, “winglets” impacted the distance of flight. It is important to note as Zachary was quit to point out that “this experiment was only performed on paper air planes and it really depends on how good a thrower you are.”

Zachary gave special thanks to his little brother Owen who let him use his airplane book for the Science Fair project.

Twenty one of the 150 Science Fair projects were selected to advance to the Regional Science Fair that will take place at Laurentian University on March 31 and April 1, 2007.

Congratulations to all our winners, and good luck at the Regional Science Fair on March 31 and April 1, 2007 at Laurentian University!