A group of Pineridge students are finalists in a Canada-wide rail safety contest and hope Rupertites will help them win the top prize.
"It was wonderful [to be selected] ... there were over 300 entries, so to be in the finals was really exciting for the students," said Grade 5 Pineridge teacher Sheryl Sadorski, who assisted students with the project.
Team Pineridge Rail Blockers, consisting of Simon Bellis, Kaedyn Bond, Kate Lindsey and Brandon Mah, hope their rail safety comic strip gets the most votes in Operation Lifesaver's Off the Rails contest. Online voting has been underway since Feb. 1, with a top prize of $4,000 being at stake, in addition to runner-up cash prizes.
The contest has teams create a project with a message of rail-safety to help kids understand the dangers of being around trains in an insightful and engaging way, with five English-speaking and five French-speaking groups from schools all over Canada being selected as finalists.
The Grade 5 students took the project on in their spare time as a way to utilize the school's technology.
"I wanted to incorporate a way that the kids could use their iPads and technology to create a multi-media poster ... we saw the contest poster and the kids were interested," said Sadorski.
"We figured since we have high train traffic in Prince Rupert it would be a great way to get out a community message and use our new technology in a different way."
The comic features a teacher asking students a math equation about the distance it would take a moving train and a child walking in the opposite direction to intersect. One of the students points out it wouldn't matter because the train would win no matter what. The comic finishes with an equation, train tracks and pedestrians equals death.
Sadorski said students did all the work, with Simon posing in photos, finding apps to create the comic and doing the cartoon transformation on an iPad. Kate also posed in the photos then edited them and typed and create speaking bubbles for the comic. Brandon came up with the equation concept and helped shoot the pictures with Kaedyn.
People can vote for the school by visiting www.offtherailscontest.ca. Pineridge's project is No. 252.