Students take away a sense of empowerment, community, and the realization that they are capable, Wright says.

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — There is a saying that has developed among students at Shad over the years.

“You can live a lot in a month if you try.”

While some summer camps are often a place where you can send your kids off to get them out of the house for the season, Shad Memorial Director Jordan Wright said Shad is where you go “if you want to change your life forever.”

In late June, 64 high school students from across Canada in Grade 10 and 11 started a month-long crash course in entrepreneurship and science, technology, engineering, art, and math — also known as STEAM. Participants collaborate in teams to generate design projects for a panel of judges, where they’re eligible to compete for awards while developing skills and sampling university life along the way.

Split into teams

For 2024, students were split into eight design teams to work on green energy solutions for Canadians.

With three weeks to complete a 20-page design plan, a video pitch, a presentation, and a prototype, many students are challenged to apply their STEAM skills in a team effort with other like-minded young people.

Wright said the students have generated an impressive variety of projects throughout the program’s twenty-one years at MUN.

“This year we had a variety of projects … a few of them were turbine related in sort of wastewater infrastructure,” he said. “We had another one that was looking at biodiesel and sort of oil. We had another one that was looking at an alternative air conditioning system.

“We had two actually that were related to exercise equipment-sort of self-powering weight machines and bicycles.”

Change of scope

Wright remarked that the introduction of 3D printing has completely changed the scope of what students can create for their design projects. The projects seemed to have left a lasting impression on the panellists, many of whom judge university-level competitions outside of Shad.

“The judges were really impressed with the quality and calibre of the prototypes. The new [judges], in particular, remarked to me that they had to remind themselves on several occasions that these were high school students,” said Wright.

One group, “Airagami”, hopes to continue working on its project after Shad won three awards, including Best Overall Project.

Another group created a weightlifting bar that can power your home, Omni Bar.

From black holes to Antarctic penguins

Shad students are also placed into a packed daily schedule, starting at 8 a.m. and lasting until curfew at 10:30 p.m. This schedule includes weekly trips and excursions to scenic places across the province, like the Bell Island mines, Fogo Island, and Cape Spear. Housed in Memorial’s Macpherson College dorms, students receive an apartment suite and meals from the Gushue Dining Hall.

With morning lectures covering a wide range of content, students learn about graph theory, black holes, cardinality, construction and engineering, and the Antarctic; students are able to sample many different disciplines, with some being mandatory and others being selective.

“We tell them – It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” said Wright. “There is a lot of benefit to the university, the province, and the community.”

With most of the students having never visited the province before, the program also showcases Memorial University’s resources and other opportunities on the rock.

In particular, many students discover MUN’s Geo Centre and the field of geosciences, while others learn about their passion for medicine through the anatomy workshop, which Wright said is a draw

“What they take away is that sense of empowerment, community, and the realization that they are capable, special and that if they put the work in, they can achieve great things,” he said.

Some of the labs and workshops they complete appeal to students because they are equivalent to senior-year course content—one exercise tasks students with identifying eye colour through the DNA testing of human remains.

This year marks Wright’s last year with Shad. He has helped organize youth towards STEAM and entrepreneurship since 2006, three years after the program’s initial inception. He has learned a lot from the students in the program and is looking forward to handing off the torch to three new team members from Memorial.