Students ready to make waves at Career Transitions ‘Sail and Bail’

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on November 12, 2024.

Herald file photo by Ian Martens Grade 8 student Jakey Fehr, from Grassy Lake's Chamberlain School, splashes his way across the pool in his team's vessel during a past year's Career Transitions Cardboard Boat Races at the University of Lethbridge.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Students from across southern Alberta are ready to make waves with the 20th annual Career Transitions cardboard boat race.

This year the event is getting a name – Sail and Bail, says Judy Stolk-Ingram, executive director of Career Transitions.

Career Transitions is expecting 200 students to converge upon the University of Lethbridge in teams of four. They will bring a design – on everything from a paper napkin to an AutoCad drawing – and over 90 minutes they will build a boat and judges from the community such as engineers, designers and architects will judge the builds.

After the boats are finished, boats will begin racing in heats of three across the Max Bell pool starting at 12:30 p.m.

Not every boat survives the journey but after three boats do, three of the four team members will sit inside them with no appendages sticking outside. If the boat carries them for a full minute without sinking or falling apart, a team gets full marks. Marks are also given for shorter durations.

“This is really a great event for kids. Teachers love it as well. It’s an opportunity for kids to apply what they’re learning in math and science and around buoyancy and propulsion. They’re able to actually practice and work with some of those concepts in a real setting,” says Stolk-Ingram.

During the build time, students have zero access to their teachers who aren’t allowed to coach teams.

If teams make mistakes during the build, they have to employ their own problem-solving skills which Stolk-Ingram says is important in today’s workplace. Skills such as leadership, communication, team work are all skills students are also building as the future workforce.

“They’re building skills but they’re just having a great deal of fun at the same time,” adds Stolk-Ingram.

Students will be representing 33 different schools from the Crowsnest Pass to Grassy Lake and Claresholm south.

Students will compete in junior (grades 7-9) and senior (grades 10-12) categories.

Career Transitions is also hosting an event on Nov. 21 called Ed-Venture, a post-secondary and training fair from 5 until 8 p.m. at the YMCA of Lethbridge on Mauritania Road West.

More than 40 post-secondary institutions and training providers from different places in Canada will be on hand to help students plan their futures.

In addition to the University of Lethbridge and Lethbridge Polytechnic, post-secondary institutions from out of province will be at the fair.

“We target all of our services at high school students but with our partnership with the YMCA this is more of a community event,” says Stolk-Ingram, noting some people might be interested in developing more skills that make them more marketable or add value to the job they already have who could find the event worthwhile.

Post pandemic, some high graduates took a gap year, says Stolk-Ingram, so for those who haven’t found a direction for themselves the fair will be a great opportunity to talk to a variety of training providers and educational institutions “just to get the feel of what’s out there.”

Three presentations are also scheduled at 5:30, 6:30 and 7:30 p.m., the keynote speaker being Jason Wegner who is the author of “Manic Man.”

“He has such a powerful presentation and he has overcome so much,” says the Career Transitions executive director

The first presentation is on financing further education and the second on transitioning to post-secondary.

Career Transitions coordinates and implements career development and opportunities for more than 12,000 students in southwestern Alberta.