Morrisburg, Ont. students win national contest with hydrogen generator project

Morrisburg students win national contest A group of students in Morrisburg, Ont. won a national contest with their hydrogen-powered generator project. CTV's Tyler Fleming reports.

MORRISBURG, ONT. — A group of students and teachers at St. Mary-St. Cecilia Catholic School in Morrisburg, Ont., has claimed first place in a national competition with a project that could help shape the future of sustainable energy.

The team of seven students, who were in Grade 6 when the project began, developed a compact hydrogen-powered generator, designed to produce energy on demand. Its potential use could be to power homes, schools, or greenhouses.

The innovative device uses water and an electrified metal plate to generate hydrogen gas.

"It could be used up in the north where it's colder or they might not have a lot of sunlight for solar panels," says Tessa Laurin, one of the students who helped build the generator. "It only uses a little bit of electricity, and the generator is clean because it doesn't release fossil fuels into the environment."

The project took five months to complete, with students working before and after school. Along the way, they faced challenges, including material malfunctions, but ultimately succeeded under the guidance of teachers Blair Fitzsimons and Laura Ferguson.

"There was a lot of determination and resilience involved," says Ferguson. "It was this team of seven who really banded together and allowed for the creativity to flow and the leadership to come through."

Their project won the Samsung Canada: Solve for Tomorrow contest, a nationwide STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) competition for students in grades 6 to 12. The first-place win earned the school $50,000 to support future learning.

"It really means that every student can become an innovator," says Fitzsimons. "That was really one of the hopes with this project is how to empower kids to transform the world and change the world. This now gives us the opportunity to buy technologies that will allow every student to create and to solve problems that really matter to the world."

Plans are already underway to use some of the prize money to purchase a laser cutter for future projects.

Students, like Liam Quesnel, see their work as more than a contest.

"We had an awesome team, and I know we could do it," he says. "And in the future, other kids coming to the school, they can have an opportunity like this to learn and benefit from, like we did."

The Samsung Canada: Solve for Tomorrow contest recognizes bold ideas to address environmental challenges and showcase innovations and problem-solving that could have lasting community impact.