Wawa Students Claim Medals at Regional Cardboard Boat Race Competitions
Conseil scolaire catholique du Nouvel-Ontario (CSCNO) schools stood out at the Regional Elementary and Secondary School Cardboard Boat Race competitions. Some 30 teams from various Northern Ontario communities took part in the challenge.
Wawa’s École Saint-Joseph teams stood out among competitors at the Northwestern Competitions held in Thunder Bay on November 22 and 23 through their capacity to build quick and sturdy cardboard boats. The school won gold and finished 5th in the elementary division. The gold-medal winning team consisted of; Emma Black, Mathieu Lafrenière, Aiden Laing and Alexandre Maurice-Martinez. Their vessel navigated a distance of 25 metres in 24.97 seconds and carried a load of 519 pounds. The team from École secondaire Saint-Joseph won the silver medal through its speed (27 seconds) and capacity to support 591 pounds. This team included Spencer Terris, Nicholas Lafrenière, Hunter Schumacher and Amily Bouchard.
Some 20 teams from various Northern Ontario communities were in Espanola on November 29 to measure their ingenuity. Students from École secondaire catholique Champlain (Chelmsford) were dominant and claimed the gold medal. Their team comprised of Francis Beaudry, Owen Sirard, Ryan Guse and Jan-Luc Daoust rose to the challenge and built a quick and sturdy cardboard boat that was able to navigate a distance of 25 metres in 23.34 seconds and support a load of 430 pounds. The team from Sudbury’s Collège Notre-Dame was also very competitive and finished 4th overall.
The elementary and secondary school students from Wawa’s École Saint-Joseph and from École secondaire catholique Champlain will travel to Waterloo in March to take part in the Provincial Elementary and Secondary School Cardboard Boat Races.
The competition, organized by Skills Canada for students from grades 7 to 12, requires each four-student team to design and build a boat. Students were evaluated based on the design and the construction quality of their boats, teamwork, organization, security, creativity, team spirit as well as the speed and resistance of their vessels. In addition to seeing the performance of their cardboard boats measured on water over a distance of 25 metres, the teams took part in a load challenge to determine how long their boats could carry a maximum number of team-mates without sinking.
The following CSCNO secondary schools also took part in the Regional Cardboard Boat Races regional competition: École secondaire Notre-Dame-du-Sault (Sault Ste. Marie), Collège Notre-Dame (Sudbury), ÉSC l’Horizon (Val Caron) and École secondaire du Sacré-Coeur (Sudbury).
The Conseil scolaire catholique du Nouvel-Ontario offers a French Catholic Educational Program that is widely recognized for its excellence. The CSCNO provides a quality learning environment and academic program that runs from early childhood to adult education, with some 7,000 students in 27 elementary and 10 secondary schools.
