The Central Okanagan School District switched gears this year, hosting an “Inquiry Expo” rather than their standard science fair.

This year's expo, held at UBC Okanagan Saturday, had students address complex, real-world issues from the United Nations's Global Goals for Sustainability.

“We have girls doing a project on gender equality, we have students tackling things like clean water, no poverty, there's other projects on sustainable communities and sustainable agriculture, clean energy,” said Tobias Blaskovits, co-ordinator of the event.

“These are real-world problems and we're trying to stretch our students to come up with solutions to those.”

Grade 7 student Raajin Hoonjan looked at making solar cells more efficient at the cheapest cost by adding reflector panels. He found that by adding the $3 reflectors, he increased the efficiency of the panel by 15 per cent.

“Something like this can really help in developing countries,” Hoonjan said.

Blaskovits said the shift from a standard science fair is about getting students to find the answers to their questions, rather than it being fed to them by a teacher.