Robots, hairstyling and new discoveries: N.L. students test out their skills for future careers

Kathryn Walsh may still be a junior high student atJuniper Ridge Intermediate in Torbaybut she's already trying her hand atprofessional hairstyling.

She says she enjoys the creative freedom.

"It's very difficult to, like, get it exact. We are doing a prom look an updo, I think. I'm trying to find out that wow factor, and I don't know what it will be yet, but I'm trying to just look for it."

Kathrynwas one of about 300 junior high students from 27 schools around the province who competed at the 19th annual Skills Canada Intermediate Challenge on Saturday, held at the Prince Philip Drive Campus of the College of the North Atlantic in St. John's.

It was the first in-person event held by Skills Canada N.L. since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March. Students can try outand compete in 14 different areas of trades, technology and employability skills, like pitching, job searching and public speaking.

They also get to build robots out of Lego.

Nicolas Reid is part of a team from Clarenville Middle School competing in the First Lego League Robotics Competition.

"We've been building this for like the past month," said Reid, "but I'd say a few other schools have been building it since maybe the beginning of the school year. So either way, it's a lot of fun."

Skills Canada partnered with the league to challenge students to apply design, codingand teamwork skills to complete a variety of tasks, such as pushing and pulling objects with their robotsto score points.

Nicolas said he couldsee some of his teammatesgoing into careers in robotics or programmingbut he was just taking part for the fun of it.

"Our main coder on our team? He's really, really good at this. The other two people on the coding team, including me, we're just second eyes for him, in case he gets something wrong," he said.

Winners from the competition will go on to represent their schools in the provincial competition, and potentially continue to the national competition in Winnipeg next May.

Hands-on experience

The real win, though, according toChristine Greene, the chair of the Skills Canada N.L. board of directors, is getting students excited about possible future careers.

"They want the hands-on experience," she said, "and for many of them, this has been their one and only opportunity to dig in, put their hands on materials, make something of it and use their creativity and realize they might have a little skill that they might want to build on or try."

Greene is passionate about getting young students to think about different careers, enabling them to make better choices as early as high school.

"We are actually the only province in the country that offers this program to Grade 7, 8 and 9students and we're really proud of that," she said.

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