Success at BT Young Scientists!

Our six projects exhibited at the Young Scientists exhibition were all well received with a lot of interest shown by both the general public and experts in the different fields who visited the stands. Students involved honed their scientific research and analysis skills in the preparation and, once in Dublin, communicated their finding with judges and interested visitors over the four days. The students involved were Bevin, Omar and Darren, with teacher J. O Donoghue; Hannah and Ria, with teacher J.O Donoghue; Sarah, Ryan and Sylvester, with teacher D. O Leary; Diarmuid, James and Joyce, with teacher S. Guerin; Daniel and Noah, also with teacher S. Guerin and Luke, Dylan and Patrick with teacher F. Lyons.

Topics investigated were "Can alternative pastures out perform artificial fertilizers", "The effects of psoriasis on adolescent mental health in 2018", "A one-stop shop website for parents of school leavers", "A geology study of our local quarry including a graphic log" , "Assessing economic activity using waste types and volumes from a recycling centre" and “An Investigation of River Pollution in the North Cork Area”.

These pieces of research opened up research into a wide variety of areas across the curriculum, helping students engage with course content through meeting people, doing desk research, building communication and research skills while developing organisational and presentation skills when completing the projects and working at the stands in the RDS.

Ryan and Sarah, with teacher Ms O’Leary were thrilled to receive recognition for their efforts through the ‘Highly Commended’ award, a recognition for their fine research on "A one-stop shop website for parents of school leavers", a topic that opens up opportunities to help students with the difficult choices on career and college choices.

Second and third year students visited the exhibition on Friday, to see the huge variety of projects and see how fellow students all over Ireland were engaging with school subjects in creative and innovative ways and putting their theory into practice. This annual trip has served to inspire the junior school to get the thinking caps on and consider entering projects in the future, and hopefully this will continue.