Recently, students in grade 8 at St. Anne Catholic Elementary School in Hanmer participated in their annual “Dragon’s Den” science fair and became inventors for the day. Grade 8 students displayed their inventions for the entire school community to view and ten groups were selected to present their inventions to the panel of Dragons in the afternoon. The dragons consisted of Mr. Mathieu, Principal of St. Anne Catholic School, Mrs. Connelly, Curriculum Coordinator at Sudbury Catholic Schools, Mr. McKee, teacher at Bishop Alexander Carter Catholic Secondary School, and Ms. McNicoll, registered nurse and community member.

Students worked extremely hard over the past 3 weeks planning, constructing, interviewing, testing, and marketing their new inventions. Their final products demonstrated the development and evaluation of innovative devices, models, techniques and approaches in technology and engineering. With the help of their teachers Julie Caissie, Jody O’Daiskey, and Jules Guenette, students integrated several technologies, inventions, or designs and constructed technological systems that could have human and commercial benefits.

St. Anne Angels created highly original products that demonstrated resourcefulness and creativity in design. Some of the top products were the “Purf”, created by Robyn Gagne and Coral Brabant, which transforms a scarf to a purse, as well as the “Kibble Katcher”, created by Alexander Gardner, which helps keep pet food from being scattered across the floor. The Sudbury Catholic District School Board held a board wide science fair on March 6th, and seven projects from St. Anne Catholic School in Hanmer were among those featured.