Chemistry (elements, compounds, and atoms) can often be a tricky concept but not when you have jube jubes to help you along. Students in grade 9 Science at St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School have been using the sweet stuff to demonstrate chemical bonding.

Grade 9 Science teachers Ms. Loretta Cuda and Ms. Tessa Jewell feel that the learning has become more solidified and that bringing manipulatives into the science classroom reinforces and allows students the opportunity to visualize and understand concepts.

The two teachers have started a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) club at the school. So far this year, the STEM students have looked at environmental projects in the Sudbury area as well as competed in the PEO bridge building competition held at Dynamic Earth.

Upcoming events include the Living Wall competition presented by Clean Air Sudbury, Science North, and supported by Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations. In addition, students will be building and testing catapults, roller-coaster, lunar landers, and Tomatosphere in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency, HeinzSeeds, Let’s Talk Science, and the University of Guelph, just to name a few.

Students at St. Benedict Catholic School wanted to remember DJ Hancock.
Hancock was a graduate from the St. Benedict class of 2014 and his first passion was hockey.

Today, the student council organized the first-ever teacher versus student buyout ball hockey game to remember DJ.DJ was killed by a drunk driver in 2014 and his family works closely with Mothers’ Against Drunk Driving (or MADD). 814 dollars was raised by students who attended the buyout.

The teachers put on a lot of pressure at the start of the game, but that fizzled and the student team grabbed a 2-1 win.