The Yukon College cafeteria was a busy place last weekend as almost 100 students presented more than 60 projects from nine schools in the 2008 Yukon/Stikine Regional Science Fair.

Projects from Grades 4 through nine were presented.

Thirty volunteer judges, representing many different scientific fields of expertise, evaluated the projects and interviewed students to select the best of an already great group of projects, officials said.

The big winners at this year's fair were David Lister, Talia Woodland and Nick Hayden, who will be off to Winnipeg in May to represent Yukon in the Canada-Wide Science Fair.

Lister and Woodland, both in Grade 8 at F.H. Collins Secondary School, are repeat winners of this honour, as they both visited Ottawa for last year's Canada-Wide Science Fair.

Lister's project was an exploration of extracting electricity from the waste heat from an engine. He built his test apparatus himself.

Lister also picked up the Yukon Commissioner's Award for "Best of Fair".

Woodland studied whether claims about bottled water tasting better could be backed up in practice. She performed a double-blind study and provided extensive analysis of her data.

The two students are also notable for having undertaken their projects without the stimulus of a school fair, as F.H. Collins did not hold a school fair this year.

Nick Hayden tested different ways of improving the aerodynamics of transport trucks. A Grade 7 student at Christ the King Elementary School, Hayden built and tested a number of models.

The important Student's Choice Award, where the fair's participants select their favourite project, was won by Haley Braga from Christ the King for her project about composting called "Let's Go Composting".

The Student's Choice Award is sponsored by the Innovators in the Schools program.

A complete listing of awards is available at this URL:

http://ycdl4.yukoncollege.yk.ca/frontier/files/innovators/YRSF2008Results.pdf [PDF]

The Yukon/Stikine Regional Science Fair is delivered by a volunteer committee with financial support from Department of Education, Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, B.C. Science Fair Foundation, Yukon Science Institute and Innovators in the Schools.