There was an air of excitement, with a few frantic undertones at College Heights Secondary School and Centennial Collegiate Vocational Institute last week when the halls, gyms, classrooms and arena were overtaken with over 1,000 elementary school students.
The Elementary Technological Skills Competition came to the Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB) on April 2 and the 259 teams participating were ready to shine.
Offered for almost a decade by the board, the Skills Ontario competition has gained in popularity, going from satellite competitions at individual schools to a board-wide event.
“It’s hands-on experiential learning,” said Chad Reay, elementary curriculum leader for the UGDSB.
“It just gives [students] an opportunity to problem solve; like true problem solving, they’ve got to figure out what they’re going to do and then design it and build it and perform a task.”
Generally in teams of four, Grades 4 to 8 students test their problem-solving skills in the competition.
“They don’t know before they show up what the specific competition’s going to be,” Reay explained. “But they do know … what last year’s competition was, the teachers know what the last five years (were like), so they kind of know a ballpark.”
Each group competes under one category in their age group. For Grades 4 to 6 there are four categories of competition and in Grades 7 and 8 there are six categories. Tasks this year ranged from designing and building a green garage to designing character animations and from designing and building gravity powered cars to coding and programming a Lego robot to perform certain tasks, Reay said.
Students don’t just decide on a whim to put a team together; they work towards the competition beginning in September.
“It’s embedded in the science and technology curriculum,” Reay said. “They’ve been given challenges, which is kind of like our problem-based learning, and they, from there, are playing around with these concepts and preparing all year.”
On the day of competition though, it’s all the students. Teachers take a backseat and watch what their students create and develop.
Though the student creations were tested at the end of the day, evaluation to choose the winning team from each division began the moment the teams arrived at the competition.
“It’s not just performance based,” Reay said.
“It’s everything from their cooperation and team work as they’re building. So as they’re designing and building, the judges are walking around, they’re also interviewing them. So they’ll be asking them questions about ‘how did you come up with the design, why this design, what problems are you having’ … as well as the performance test.”
The power of the skills competition can lead participants to seek further education.
Adam Bibby is a first-year computer engineering student at the University of Guelph and was also the head judge of the animation competition this year. He began participating in the animation portion of the Skills Ontario competition when he was in Grade 4 at Jean Little Public School in Guelph and he says he still uses some of the knowledge the competition developed.
“(I’m using) a lot of the teamwork aspects … because we have to do teamwork still and it helps to be able to work with your team well and figure out how to … bring components that have been designed by multiple people and put them all into one cohesive project,” Bibby explained.
He said once he graduates from university he is hoping to look for a job in computer coding.
At the end of the competition the winners for each division included: Maryborough Public School for junior character animations; Waverley Drive Public School for intermediate character animations; Waverley Drive Public School for junior Lego robotics; John Black Public School for intermediate Lego robotics; Elora Public School for junior design and build; Waverley Drive Public School for intermediate design and build; Willow Road Public School for intermediate green energy; Glenbrook Public School for intermediate health and safety; Waverley Drive Public School for intermediate character animations; Mitchell Woods Public School for intermediate TV/video; and Aberfoyle Public school for junior and intermediate Lego mechanics.
Each winning team will be competing in the Skills Ontario Finals from May 4 to 6 at RIM Park in Waterloo. They will be given their task in advance and will be able to prepare their design before the competition.
