Five local students have advanced to the Canada Wide Science Fair.
The Lambton County Science Fair, that was scheduled to be held at Lambton College starting on Friday, was relocated to Northern Collegiate Institute and Vocational School (NCIVS) at the last minute following the tragic shooting on the college campus.
Spokesperson Melissa Chopcian said the nation-wide event will be from May 23-30, 2026 in Edmonton.
The students advancing are;
1. Cyndi Rayson (Grade 10, St. Patrick’s) - “Rooting Out Pollution: An Organic Floating Wetland for Heavy Metals, Nutrient, and PFAS Remediation"
2. Ben Harper (Grade 9, LCCVI) - “Motivating Methanogens - Exploring the Impact of Geometry on Anaerobic Digestion"
3. Muhammad Mustafa Arif (Grade 10, NCIVS) - “Wi-QuantumNet: Novel Passive Wi-Fi CSI Sensing for Aging and Underserved Independent Living"
4. Naina Patel (Grade 7, Rosedale) - “Foil the Oil and Plastics"
5. Om Patel (Grade 11, NCIVS) - “LLM Wars: A Multi-Dimensional Benchmark of LLMs for Pain Point Extraction from Software Feedback"
Organizers and participants are thanking the Lambton Kent District School Board (LKDSB) and Manley's Basics for their quick actions to avoid cancelling the event.
"We reached out to the LKDSB and they agreed to host our event at NCIVS," Chopcian said. "They cancelled events of their own to ensure the school, gyms, computers, and printers were available for our use. Manley’s even donated paper and tables, and NCIVS had them set up and ready to go in the gym when we arrived. We cannot thank the staff at NCIVS enough for their quick action, warmth, and general support they provided on such short notice. Because of them, our fair was able to proceed without any further problems."
