Katie Vogt
Special to the Tribune/Advisor
I am a Grade 12 student at Maranatha Christian School.
For years now, our school’s science room has been just that, a science room.
However, all that has recently been changing because of the work of one of our teachers.
Over the summer, Maranatha was able to renovate our science room so it is now a real, functional lab, with lab tables and stools rather than desks and chairs.
It is so wonderful to have a workspace like this, and it really opens up the options for what we can do during science classes.
Mrs. Pamela Skinner made all of this happen by participating in the Shell Science Lab Competition, a program of the National Science Teachers Association.
For the competition she shared about how she approaches science with such a limited laboratory facility. She won for our competition district which is all of Canada.
Then she competed against the winners from 18 other districts across North America, and won a place among the top five national finalists.
As a result, Mrs. Skinner won the honour of being a NSTA/Shell Science Lab Challenge National Finalist.
This included a school banner and trophy plus $3,000 in donated science lab equipment, materials, and gift certificates from Ward’s Science.
It also included a $3,000 Shell Science Lab grant to buy lab equipment and science education books.
An expense-paid trip to Chicago for the 2015 NSTA National Conference on Science Education is also among the prizes. Good job Mrs. Skinner!
We, the students of Maranatha, truly appreciate all the work Mrs. Skinner went through to improve our educational experience.
Of course having a good lab makes her job easier, but it also makes classes such as chemistry a lot more enjoyable and exciting.
Thank you to Mrs. Skinner for all of your work, and to the Shell Science Lab Challenge for the resources to provide our school with a real laboratory!