Avnish Jolly, Winnipeg : The Manitoba Schools Science Symposium (MSSS) is the largest annual science fair held in Manitoba. This year, it attracted 290 projects from 371 students from Grades 4 through 12.
Many awards medals, certificates and trophies are handed out each year, many sponsored by private industry and industry groups. The students also receive cash prizes.
The top six students each year are also chosen to represent Manitoba at the Canada Wide Science Fair, which this year is being held May 12 to 19 in Charlottetown, P.E.I. They will share in about $3,000 in cash prizes, plus their expenses to the national event.
Sarah Wang’s research on developing a vaccine for leishmaniasis was her entry at this year’s Manitoba Schools Science Symposium, and was recognized Sunday as the grand prize in the senior category. She will be going to P.E.I., along with one of her Grade 11 classmates, Ashley Bell. Bell and Laura Kim, a 12th grader at FRC, took the grand prize in the Health Sciences category for their project, Using Nuclear Matrix to Detect Colorectal Cancer Cells.
The other grand prize winners, who are also going to the Canada Wide Science Fair in Charlottetown, are:
Shreyas Devalapurkur, Dakota Collegiate, best overall individual in the intermediate category, for The Effect of Chemical Stress on Protein Profile of Cells.
Abhishek Chakraborty, Acadia Junior High, best overall individual in the Junior category, for Effects of Folic Acid on Cellular Senescence. Rylen de Vries, grand prize in the Engineering category, for Gone With the Wind Tunnel (testing for better ballistic missile design).
Sarah Wang’s research on developing a vaccine for leishmaniasis was her entry at this year’s Manitoba Schools Science Symposium, and was recognized Sunday as the grand prize in the senior category.
“It’s a disease with no known cure, but we have to find a cure for it,” Wang, a Grade 11 student from Fort Richmond Collegiate, said following the award ceremonies at the University of Manitoba Sunday.
Wang came to Canada two years ago, emigrating with her parents from China. Her parents are factory workers. Wang shared that she hopes to study medicine after high school and inspired to tackle leishmaniasis by her mentor, Dr. Jude Uzonna, and supervisor, Dr. Zhirong Mou, at the U of M.
Malika Sharma, grade 4 student, Winnipeg made a poster on How much walking is enough? Her project won her gold medal in elementary category (Health Sciences) among grade 4 to 6 students and this project was also ranked as the best individual Health Sciences project.
Malika was born in Vancouver, Canada to an Indian origin couple, Mrs. Anita and Mr. Yogesh Sharma. She has inherited this from her father who is from School of Town Planning and Architecture, Delhi and her mother is a Ph.D from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. She too wants to study medicine after high school.
Dr. Ashim Bagchi, St. Boniface Research Center mentored six Indian students four of whom got Gold Medal, two got silver.