Surrey Students Bring Home Medals & Awards From Canada-Wide Science Fair

A group of Surrey students is celebrating following an awards-heavy showing at this year’s Canada-Wide Science Fair (CWSF), the nation’s largest youth STEM event.
Held last week in Edmonton, this year’s CWSF brought together about 400 of Canada’s top young scientists from Grades 7-12 to showcase their projects in person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Representing Surrey Schools were students Ryyan Hammoud, Antony Zhang, Ali Soufi and Fayhaa Kafi from SAIL (Surrey Academy of Innovative Learning), Albert Guo from Fraser Heights Secondary and Henry Xu from Elgin Park Secondary. Students were invited to attend nationals after winning at the South Fraser Regional Science Fair earlier this spring.
Together, the group of students brought home a combined total of nine medals and awards, some of which had cash prizes attached to them.
Craig Sutton, science helping teacher for Surrey Schools, said events like the CWSF are invaluable for fostering STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) enthusiasm among students, providing them a stage to showcase innovations beyond their local school and regional fairs.
“These types of projects are far beyond the traditional baking soda volcano that people tend to envision,” explained Sutton. “Albert Guo, for example, did his project on Alzheimer’s research and biomarker-base diagnosis. When I was their age, there was no way I was doing that kind of project, so things have really come a long way.” 
Other winning projects from Surrey Schools students this year included Kafi’s Orange Brick 2.0, a building material developed from amorphous waste plastics; Soufi and Zhang’s Refugee Pal, an app developed to help new immigrants to Canada; Hammoud’s Smart Naloxone Kit, which helps individuals self-administer naloxone in the event of an overdose; and Xu’s Solar Follower, a solar panel designed to follow the sun’s path throughout the day.