HALIFAX – The next time you open your Internet browser to Google something, you could find yourself looking at a doodle drawn by a Halifax student.
Seven students at Bedford South Elementary School are submitting drawings for Canada’s first-ever Doodle for Google contest.
The competition has had the students’ creative juices flowing but it has also inspired and pushed the students to think like scientists.
The theme of the drawing contest is “If I could invent anything, I would invent…”, and the elementary students have been thinking outside the box, to say the least.
Michael Vician, 11, spent some time brainstorming before settling on a time machine.
“I think it would be really cool if you could time travel, in the past and in the future, and find out all the mysteries about the world,” he said.
Michael’s doodle featured the seat of the time machine in the letter “G”, fuel for the time machine in the letters “OO” and the output of the machine in the “E”.
His younger sister Felis, 10, had an extraterrestrial theme to her doodle: she invented life on Mars.
“I drew some creatures here and I drew Mars. I drew this big satellite,” Felis said.
Students say creating their doodles gave them a better appreciation for the work of scientists and inventors.
“I can’t get inventions off the top of my head. It taught me to think harder and be more creative,” said Megan Doyle, 11.
It was the same story for Sydney Khan, 11, who created a giant paper airplane that could take people around Canada in one minute.
Sydney said the inspiration for her invention came from her father, who works in Calgary and has to endure the long commute back to the Maritimes.
Her doodle featured prominent sights such as Parliament Hill, Peggy’s Cove and the Northern Lights.
Their teacher Shelly Tulloch said she saw her students grow during the course of the project.
But more importantly, Tulloch said that she saw your students reach for something more than just drawing a doodle.
“They were inspired. They were thinking ‘Could I take this a step further? Could this be something I make a prototype of? Where could it lead us’?,” she said.
The Google doodle contest closes next Tuesday on New Year’s Eve.
The competition is open to students from kindergarten to grade 12.
The winner of the national competition will see his or her doodle featured on the Google Canada homepage, receive a $10,000 scholarship, $10,000 grant for his or her school and be featured in a Royal Ontario Museum exhibit.
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