INSPIRED STUDENTS

Pickering College’s Food Services team hosted a virtual meet and greet for our boarding students with a registered dietician. The conversation centred around vegetarian diets during the teenage years.

Oscar Jiang, Javir Obhan and Shyam Subramanyam competed in the Ontario Qualifier for the National Senior Public Speaking Championships. This highly challenging and competitive event required students to compete in four different categories: Persuasive Speaking, Interpretive Reading, Impromptu

Speaking and Canadian Parliamentary Debate. Oscar finished second in the Persuasive Speaking category and his culminating score placed him as the first alternate for team Ontario. Shyam finished third in the Persuasive Speaking category and fifth in the Canadian Parliamentary Debate category, and his culminating score across all categories earned him a spot as one of eight competitors chosen to represent Ontario at Nationals.

During the 12 days of holiday festivities, members of the Senior School Student

Committee prepared a slate of activities for students, including festive sweater day, bring-your-own mug for hot chocolate, holiday cardmaking, tree decorating, tobogganing, and more!

Erica Cameron, Grade 12, led an informative seminar on the various methods of fire-starting. Despite the challenging weather conditions, she taught the class how to use magnesium sticks to start a fire. Students learned safe fire management skills and how to safely extinguish fires. The seminar was part of a series on outdoor skills led by students in the class.

Ryan Francis, Charlotte Jez, Amanda Zeng, Krypton Ni, Shianne Liang, Sandra Rohani, and Rebecca Liang attended the Women in Capital Markets (WCM) Virtual Conference In2Fin (formerly known as SheBiz). Attendees gained insight into careers in the financial services industry. Keynote speakers explored topics such as courses students can take to set them up for a career in business and STEM, as well as statistics on the percentage of women in business workplaces.

Although pandemic restrictions made it more challenging for our language students to explore authentic learning experiences outside of the classroom, the advanced Spanish class did their best by bringing a taste of Spain to one of their lessons. They explored Spanish culture and cuisine by learning to make one of Spain’s most beloved dishes, tortilla española. Although it may have appeared to be an ordinary lesson in following directions in Spanish, Mrs. Suters surprised her students with an authentic, fresh-from-home tortilla española for everybody to try. 

The art of fake food in Japan dates back to the 1920s, when the country experienced a food revolution and people from rural Japan flocked to cities to experience restaurant dining. Wax models were helpful to potential customers who were unfamiliar with written menus, to give them an idea of what dishes were offered. After the Second World War came the Americans and Europeans, who were even less familiar with Japanese menus and relied heavily on the fake food displays. Using the hyper-realistic food sculptures created for the Japanese restaurant industry as inspiration, Grade 9 students selected their favourite meal from their own culture and created beautiful realistic clay sculptures. 

Grade 12 student Luke Sharpe led a seminar on animal tracking, highlighting the habitats and evidence of eight different animals. Using precast molds as examples, he tasked students with finding as many animal tracks and/or evidence of animals on campus as possible. With their keen eyes, his classmates followed an animal trail in matted-down grass, correctly identified rabbit scat, and discovered mouse/ vole tunnels that provide protection from predators. 

Grade 10 Science students assessed their carbon footprints on a website that uses the body to represent different areas of carbon dioxide production. Students completed five actions to minimize their carbon footprint and presented their work as a photo journal. 