STFX STUDENT INSPIRES LOVE OF SCIENCE IN YOUTH IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

Helping grade school children in her home community of Hay River, Northwest Territories fall in love with science was how StFX student Victoria Tweedie-Pitre spent part of her summer. Ms. Tweedie-Pitre, a third-year honours biology and chemistry student, designed and presented a science outreach program in three schools in the small northern community where she grew up—at the local Francophone school École Boréale (her former high school, where she facilitated activities in French), the English school, Princess Alexandra, and Chief Sunrise, the Indigenous school, meeting with mostly junior high school aged students. “My goal was for them to fall in love with the science and to want to do more,” says Ms. Tweedie-Pitre, who was awarded a Special Award for Independent Outreach Honorarium funded equally by X-Oceans Outreach and an EDI Capacity grant from the StFX Biology Department. She planned everything before she le StFX in spring, organized the outreach activities, and shipped the equipment north. e outreach was particularly important to her, she says, as her experience in the Territories has been that there’s not a lot of drive to pursue much a er high school. “Kids don’t realize what else is out there.” She wanted to help inspire the youth, to show them opportunities that are available. “Seeing them enjoy it so much, and to nd it fascinating, that was my goal, for them to see that science is cool,” she says.