LAKELAND – Students from the Lakeland and beyond showcased projects tackling complex scientific challenges at the 2025 Lakeland Regional Science Fair, hosted by St. Paul and District STEAM Society (SPDSS) on April 12.
The participating school divisions included Northern Lights Public Schools, St. Paul Education, Conseil scolaire Centre-Est, Lloydminster Catholic School Division, Fort McMurray Public Schools, and Rocky View Schools.
Among the contestants was Ryan Noel from St. Paul, who worked on his “HEADSMART - Gyroscope concussion sensor” project, and competed in the Junior category for students in Grades 7 to 9.
Noel created a device to help detect potential concussions in sports. The device uses an accelerometer to measure the force of impact to an athlete's head.
If the impact exceeds 70 gravitational force (a measurement of acceleration), the device turns on an LED light to alert that a concussion might have occurred.
Noel was inspired to do the project after getting a concussion while playing baseball. “It's really just evolving the concussion testing in minor league sports, and I'm hoping to implement it in the next few years,” said Noel.
Noel won gold in the junior category last year and earned a bronze medal at the 2024 Canada-Wide Science Fair.
ITP Awareness
Other junior competitors were Dawood Mohammed and Daniyah Abdul Wadood, also from St. Paul.
Their project focused on raising awareness about ITP (Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura), a rare autoimmune disorder preventing blood from clotting, because “the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys platelets,” explained Abdul Wadood.
ITP is so rare that only about 9.5 individuals in every 100,000 people have ITP.
The two students created an experiment “to demonstrate the difference in the bleeding time and clotting time in an ITP patient and a healthy individual,” explained Mohammed.
People with ITP have easy bruising, bleeding gums, frequent nose bleeds, fatigue, among many other effects including wounds not healing fast enough, according to the two students.
Senior
Among the students competing in the senior category for Grades 11 and 12 was Kathryn Graham from Bonnyville, who conducted a survey to assess first aid knowledge among working adults.
Graham hopes to raise awareness about the importance of regular first aid training and to encourage people to refresh their skills for those who are already trained.
“What would you do if someone were to have a heart attack? Or they choke, or fall down the stairs?” she questioned, hypothetically. “Because as much as we'd like to pretend that it could never happen. . . the reality is it can happen to anyone.”
Graham believes that if there is at least just one person confident enough to provide aid in health emergencies, “maybe things would turn out a bit better.”
Asked if she is satisfied with the results she gathered from her survey, Graham said she is positive, because most people she surveyed scored good results, including people who may not have had first aid training but had background information through passing conversations.
“There's sort of enough background conversation about first aid in the world that there's a decent chance that at least someone will be able to help if something happens,” she said.
Finding cancer treatments
Ali Usman from Fort McMurray won first place in this year’s senior category with his project called, “Predicting Novel Pharmacological Inhibitors for Cancer Cell Lines Using Drug Sensitivity Data.”
Usman’s project uses machine learning to search through huge numbers of chemical compounds to predict which ones might be effective against specific types of cancer.
His goal is to help discover new cancer drugs more quickly and at a lower cost. Right now, it takes over a billion dollars and more than a decade to develop new cancer drugs, according to Usman.
By feeding computers the chemical “fingerprints” of different compounds (called Morgan fingerprints), Usman trained an AI model to predict how well those compounds might work against cancer cells.
It’s like teaching a computer to find the best possible matches between drugs and cancer types, without having first to test each one in a lab.
Usman’s motivation is deeply personal. His grandfather has Parkinson’s disease and relies on a specific drug to manage his condition. He acknowledges that people with unique forms of cancer might not have the same access to effective drugs.
“Many companies won't make inhibitors because there's a lack of profit to be made,” said Usman, and he wants to change that.
Science and growth
Keith Gamblin, associate superintendent, Learning Services, at St. Paul Education, has been a close partner with the SPDSS since the regional science fair’s inception in the Lakeland two years ago.
Gamblin said he is proud to see students “taking initiative and solving real world problems.”
“That’s what learning should be,” he said, adding, he looks forward to more engagement with the regional science fair in the future. Gamblin encourages the participating students to keep working hard and continue to be curious.
“We're very proud of all of the students and all the hard work that they've done,” said Gamblin.
SPDSS President Khurram Abbasi also encourages students to remain curious and not settle for what they know or what the status quo may be - and to keep experimenting.
“What science teaches you is to question everything.”
Among the core visions of SPDSS “is to build a science community,” according to Abbasi. “[The science fair] is not just about winning. It's about that experience. Life is all about that.”
Students may fail with their initial projects, but failing is part of building success.
“You cannot build a perfect product the first time, there's always room for improvement,” and the science fair allows students that room to fail so they can build on that to achieve success, he said.
Abbasi also challenges students to “invent something” that has not been invented yet. “If you keep at it. Maybe one day, you will reach a point where it's only you in this whole world of eight billion people that has done this.”
SPDSS Director of Youth Chris Cameron also expressed his pride for all participating students.
“They certainly are smart and motivated. They don't have this sense of – I can’t do it,” he said. “That's very refreshing, because certainly for me, as I get older, there's a lot of things I say that can't be done, and I know better.”
Junior results (Grade 7-9)
First: Ryan Noel’s ‘HEADSMART - Gyroscope concussion sensor’
Second: Cali and Kaya McKay’s ‘Nature vs Water Bottle’ won second place; also won the People’s Choice Award
Third: ‘ITP - Rare Disease Awareness’ by Dawood Mohammed and Daniyah Abdul Wadood
Senior results (Grade 11-12)
First: ‘Predicting Novel Pharmacological Inhibitors for Cancer Cell Lines Using Drug Sensitivity Data’ by Ali Usman
Second: ‘Correcting CFTR Mutations in Cystic Fibrosis: The Promise of Gene Therapy’ by Grace Dixon.
Third: ‘How much do we really know about first aid?’ by Kathryn Graham
Shad Canada $750 Grants
Ryan Noel and Dawood Mohammed both claimed grants from Shad Canada.
Harper Matthews and Shyanne Klatt, who worked on the ‘Does Red-Dye Catch the Eye? Project also earned grants from Shad Canada.
Canada Science Fair - Matthews and Klatt, along with Ali Usman, Ryan Noel, and Kathryn Graham, also qualified for the 2025 Canada Science Fair.
Elementary results
First: ‘Riding on Air’ by Arlo Finlay and Colton Sheppard
Second: ‘How different fluids affect our teeth’ by Kaleigh Pomerleau
Third: ‘Oh no, Jack has Hydrocephalus’ by Marc Vallee
Special Awards
Aleah Hoy’s ‘Tremendous Trebuchet’ won the Best Presentation Award.
Kaleigh Pomerleau’s (elementary) ‘How different fluids affect our teeth’ won the Great Communicator Award.
Arlo Finlay and Colton Sheppard (Elementary) won the ‘Super Scientist Award.’
