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Budding scientists take text books to reality

A group of students from the Yorkton Regional High School recently had the opportunity to visit the Canadian Light Source (Synchrotron) in Saskatoon. Their experience was so interesting they decided to share it with the school Board.
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ACCOMPANIED by their science teacher Mr. Wayne Clark (top right), a group of Yorkton Regional High School students recently had the opportunity to travel to the Synchrotron in Saskatoon. Pictured above they are Cordell Young, Jonathan Machnee, Kali Meszaros, Brandon Campbell, Matthew Tripp, Adesawa Oloko and Hayley Popick

A group of students from the Yorkton Regional High School recently had the opportunity to visit the Canadian Light Source (Synchrotron) in Saskatoon. Their experience was so interesting they decided to share it with the school Board.

Cordell Young, Jonathan Machnee, Kali Meszaros, Brandon Campbell, Matthew Tripp, Adesawa Oloko and Hayley Popick, accompanied by teacher Wayne Clark, engaged in authentic real-world science as they used the amazing capabilities of the largest new science facility in Canada.

The group enjoyed the experience so much that they were provided the opportunity to share a presentation with the Board of Education prior to the Board's regular meeting on April 21.

A program called Students on the Beamlines gets high school students from across Canada directly involved in cutting-edge scientific research at the Canadian Light Source. The program is supported by NSERC, PromoScience and the Canadian Light Source.

The local group of budding scientists attended a three-day session. On the first day, they were provided with an orientation to the facility and a session on how the Synchrotron works. Similar to a group of researchers, the students needed to formulate a hypothesis that they intended to test the following day. The experiment is run on the second day and the third day is spent pouring over the observations and determining scientific conclusions according to the data gathered.

Not only do students undertake the experience of working in a world-class facility but they come to realize that science is not "cookie-cutter" - it is not like a textbook where there is one definitive answer to a question but rather numerous unknown variables come into play that can change the outcome immeasurably.

"The Students on the Beamlines Project provided me with an amazing experience," says Brandon Campbell, one of the student participants. "It allowed me an opportunity to work at a world-class facility that scientists and researchers from around the world regularly use."

Hayley Popick adds, "It was challenging and at times frustrating to take the concepts that we had quickly learned and try to apply them to our experiment without much outside help. Then seeing that our experiment worked and gathering conclusions felt like so much more of an achievement."

"It's interesting to see that our local students can take advantage of world-class facilities such as the Canadian Light Source to further their studies in the area of science," states Raymond Sass, Board Chair.

"As a Board, we recognize that students are able to take advantage of opportunities outside of the regular classroom atmosphere. Successful field trips such as this may indeed shape a young mind to make a career decision towards a specific area of study they didn't necessarily have access to in the past."

The Canadian Light Source is Canada's national centre for synchrotron research and is a global leader and a recognized centre of excellence in synchrotron science and its applications. Since 2005 the CLS has hosted over 4,000 user visits from academic institutions, government, and industry, and delivered over 15,000 experimental shifts to users from across Canada and 16 countries.