By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
VAN BUREN — For their video depicting how science, engineering and technology affects their daily lives, six students of the Van Buren Secondary School were awarded $1,000 — a prize that will take the six winners and their classmates on an extraordinary field trip of their choice.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
S.W. Cole engineers announced during a surprise assembly on Dec. 9 that five Van Buren students had won $1,000 through the company’s “Dig Into Science” competition. The students had submitted a short film showing how science, engineering and technology affected their lives daily. The winning film’s five creators are, from left, Chantal Roix, Parise Rossignol, Nicholas Lajoie, Marc Lajoie and Forrest Bouchard. Also shown is Steven Giangiordano, their teacher; S.W. Cole engineer Sarah Ashley and S.W. Cole Environmental Scientist and Caribou Office Manager Chad McPherson.
Chantal Roix, Parise Rossignol, Nicholas Lajoie, Marc Lajoie, Ashley Martin and Forrest Bouchard entered a video into S.W. Cole Engineering Inc.’s “Dig Into Science” competition, but had no idea they’d won as they entered a surprise assembly on Dec. 9 — the secret behind the assembly was so tightly kept that not event the teachers knew what the gathering was about and co-contest winner Martin didn’t know to be present.
“I thought we were trouble for something,” said Roix.
The students were, of course, in the opposite of trouble as the group and their teacher, Steven Giangiordano, were presented with a giant $1,000 check, applauded by their peers and received pesudo-celebrity status through their film — a one-minute clip featuring cameos the students interacting with technology around them, all set to a drum riff created by sophomore film-hobbyist Nicholas Lajoie.
As Rossignol, a junior, explained, instead of focusing on one particular aspect of science, technology or engineering, the group instead elected to feature short clips of interactions with technological and engineering elements that they use daily; one of her favorite clips, for example, shows Marc Lajoie and Bouchard using a vending machine at school.
“We tried to keep it simple and highlight everyday use of things,” said Roix. While she wasn’t expecting to win with her group’s video, both Roix and Rossignol thought they had a pretty good shot in the contest, and mentioned how the film’s editor, Nick Lajoie, does his own video production for fun.
“Everyone knows that one of my favorite things to do is make videos, so I guess they were kind of happy to have me on the team,” he said.
Going into the editing process, Lajoie’s idea for the film centered around combining clips of different science and engineering objects from every day life with a soundtrack he recorded (as it was specified in the contest rules that any music used in the film be original).
“From there I just edited the video to flow with the beat,” he added.
Van Buren was one of six schools named contest-winners, their co-victors ranging in grades from fourth to eleventh. Other winning schools included Leeds Central School in Leeds, the Samuel L. Wagner Elementary School in Winterport, the Kennebunkport Consolidated School in Kennebunk, the Boynton Middle School in Ipswich, N.H and Portsmouth Middle School in Portsmouth, N.H.
While other schools were reported experiencing jubilant excitement as it was announced they’d won, it was a little quieter at the Van Buren Secondary School.
“It was kind of quiet,” explained Environmental Engineer and Office Manager of S.W. Cole’s Caribou office Chad McPherson. “They really didn’t know what was happening.”
But the students became progressively louder as the news sunk in, and the winning students were donning bright smiles by the time they left the auditorium.
The winning Van Buren class has yet to decide the destination of their field trip.
“This is our first year launching the Dig Into Science contest,” explained S.W. Cole Engineer Sarah Ashley, adding that the company has always been very involved with getting students interested in science and technology.
There were a total of 47 entries from all over Maine and New Hampshire; considering this was the contest’s first run, organizers were hoping for at least 20 entries.
Not only were 47 minute-long films submitted, they were all quality work.
“For our first time out, we’re quite pleased with the results,” said S.W. Cole Vice President David Dunning, who mentioned that judges underwent multiple viewings of each film to carefully select the winners.
“It was a lot of fun for us, and one of the things we found was just how much effort these students put into these films and what a learning experiences the teachers made this.”
