Students soar to first place in Ducks Unlimited competition

Fort Richmond

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This article was published 03/05/2023 (1081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three Fort Richmond Collegiate students have won first place in an annual competition run by Ducks Unlimited Canada’s Wetland Centres of Excellence program.

Students Sotiris Kyriazis, David Mirimba and Ophelia Cheung spent the two weeks coming up with their idea and final presentation: a case study proposed to help lessen the impact of rising sea levels in eastern Canadian provinces.

The winning proposal examined the use of salt marshes to help lower the rate of erosion on the eastern coasts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where rising water levels are threatening the local infrastructure. The proposed salt marshes would help lower the speed of the oncoming ocean waves.

“It was very, very open-ended,” Kyriazis said. “I think we had enough background research and we considered a lot of factors, which is ultimately what gave us the win.”

The students said that they already had a lot of the knowledge and ideas for a plausible proposal. The bulk of the preparation involved perfecting a way to present their project to the judges, Mirimba said.

“(Our teachers helped) emphasize our presentation skills, how we’re gonna present our points and which point we have to emphasise,” said Cheung.

Because the three students had their ‘topics in science’ class together, they were able to work closely and collaboratively throughout the extracurricular project with their teacher, Jennifer Piasecki.

They were thankful for the mentorship on their presentation skills, admitting that their own friends were much tougher on them than the final judges turned out to be.

The day they learned they had won was far from formal. Cheung received the email and was sent on a wild goose chase to track her groupmates and teacher down so she could tell them the news.

Winning the competition earned them prize money to help support the school, but they also emphasized the impact it had on their course.

“I think a couple of days before that day we presented, Ms. Piasecki told us the story of the class. She was like, ‘Oh, the administrators wanted to get rid of it,’” Kyriazis said.

“They were like, ‘it’s kind of pointless stuff,’ and I think that like, showing how involvement through that class can benefit the school and the community (was good),” he said.

Kate Belmore, national education coordinator at Ducks Unlimited Canada, said tshe is often impressed by the optimism that the students express through their proposals. She’s also proud of the critical thinking they do to make their proposals plausible.

“Whenever we talk to youth… they know that there are problems in the world and they always say to us, ‘we just want more training and more knowledge. Everyone says that we’re the environmental leaders of the future, but no one is training us properly,’ that’s something we hear a lot,” she said.

Belmore said that kids who are involved in these programs already have the will and motivation to get things done, and Ducks Unlimited is there to help give them the tools and training to do it.

“(It’s) also for them to realize that no matter what life trajectory you will take, whatever you end up doing… all of our personal and professional decisions can have an impact on the environment,” she said.

All three students plan to go into STEM-related post-secondary studies following graduation.

The Wetland Centres of Excellence program is a national network of 27 schools that aims to encourage student projects and mentorship with the goal of environmental conservation for Canada’s future.