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St. A dominates

CHARLES TWEED/Ponoka News

St. Augustine School might want to keep the recent Caring for Our Watersheds their little secret after they raked in $5,900 for school programming from the competition held in Wetaskiwin.

The program is used as an educational tool to weave together the strengths of industry, environmental organizations and communities to engage students in preserving and improving their local watersheds. It is meant to empower students to imagine, develop and create solutions in their area.

St. Augustine School sent 11 of the top 20 teams from areas north of Red Deer.

“The kids were totally self-directed on ideas. They chose a topic and went from there deciding which one they thought would affect the watershed the most,” said science teacher Daniella Perillat.

In the junior high category, the school had the top four groups.

Courtney Bolze and Rhyliegh Patterson took top honors for their presentation on preventing erosion, while Zoe Cire grabbed second, Savannah Slater and Erika Sieweke finished third and Meghan Rain’s Project Wake Up was fourth.

The top four spots means the students took home a whopping $2,600, a number that will be matched and given to the school.

In the senior high category: Lisa–Marie McLennan, Sara Tomlinson, and Nicole Beier won first place and the $1,000 prize for their presentation called Energy Literacy Research Proposal. Alison Beier, Taylor Baron and Karen Kirk finished second; Katie Wyering, Vickie Wyering, Kaitlin Lomas and Melissa Gartner finished third; Channal Marie Mandrusiak, Ethan Doorenthal, Celeste Tatlow and Nathalie Bergman were fourth with their project called School Waterbottle Cleanup; Samantha and Grace Stretch were fifth; Chase Miller, Jerome Acosta and Nicholas Buffalo came in sixth and Angel Taylor, Brittney Feldberg and Jesse Hesselink rounded it out in seventh.

Over the past two years the school has won more than $11,000 in prize money.

“We used the matched amount for our science budget and we’ve been using it for field trips to places like the Space and Science Centre,” said Perrilat.