Vancouver CIC Local Section
 National Chemistry Week 2005

Crystal Growing Competition

The Vancouver CIC Local Section was again pleased to participate in the celebration of National Chemistry Week for the year 2005. This was the 11th year that we have had a crystal growing competition. We had a very good response this year with 3 schools supplying 16 different crystals...the submissions would have been much higher but for the province-wide teachers strike for the public schools. The judging took place at Science World on Saturday, October 22nd, 2005.

Three free children/youth passes to Science World were given to each school that submitted crystals for the competition courtesy of the Vancouver local section of the CIC. The two judges were Dr. Ken Mcfarlane and Dr. Yuo Guang Ye. They used the same criteria for judging that is used for the national awards in Ottawa.

The following results were obtained after a very careful examination and consideration of each crystal submitted:

• Best overall crystal
  Ruchi Ahluwalia and Elizabeth Self
  Crofton House School
  (teacher: Zaitun Mahedi)

• Best quality crystal
  Akashdeep Aujla, Cody Lin and Michael Winkelman
  Southridge Independent School
  (teacher: Kierstan McCaw)

Crystal Champ T-shirts, pocket periodic tables and CIC buttons were sent to each of these winners to acknowledge their excellence. These best crystals were sent to Ottawa for the National Competition where the Southridge Independent School students placed first in the Best Quality Crystal category.
 

The Three Profs

There were two chemistry shows entitled 'The Three Prof's Most Excellent Chemistry Adventures' in the Science World demonstration theatre. These shows are always enjoyed by a large audience of young people, students, their families and parents. The crowd was delighted and awed by the prof's enthusiastic and well-paced performances of their skills and experiments.

I would like to thank all the people who aided me in my first year of coordinating this event. Special thanks go out to Dr. Danny Leznoff, MCIC, Ms. Gale Thirlwall-Wilbee and Dr. Denis Bussiëres, MCIC for their help and assistance in making the competition a success.
 

Respectfully Submitted,
Andrew Tovey
Regional Coordinator of the Vancouver Section
of the National Chemistry Week Crystal Competition.

Photos courtesy of Fred Deuel