Abbeyfeale eight make impression in Young Scientist
Eight students from Colaiste Ide agus Iosef in Abbeyfeale participated in Dublin in the 53rd B.T Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition last week. Two of the three entries picked up display awards. This was the third year running that the school had entered the competition. Over 4500 students from across Ireland submitted projects from which only a select number of projects were chosen for last week's exhibition.
The three projects from Abbeyfeale had been worked on over the last few months in a collaborative effort by students with guidance from their teachers, Maria McMahon and Joanne Culhane. They focussed on physical fitness, protein milk and social media 'likes'. Both students and teachers had a very interesting yet busy four days in Dublin dealing with large numbers of visitors made up of judges, media, Ministers and the general public. Projects from the school featured on a variety of news outlets during the week.
The project “Who is the fittest of them all?” compared students in junior and senior cycle and their respective fitness levels. The students, Aoife Curtin, Ciara Hunt and Emily Pierse tested hundreds of students and their comprehensive findings suggested a trend where students get less fit as they progress through second level.
Muscular Strength and the effect of protein milk on this area of the body was the focus of a project by Caoimhe Ní Fhlannabhra and Sinéad Hunt. This project saw the students test students but also interview experts from third level. The conclusions drawn from their work emphasise the positive effects of protein milk.
The final project from Colaiste Ide agus Iosef dealt with the ever popular area of technology. In this project the students looked into teenagers obsession with “likes” on social media. As Leona Lyons, Rachael Horan and Cian O Connor from the “Am I liked?” project explained “Before we started our project we noticed that many young people were becoming increasingly obsessed and concerned with social media networking sites. We observed as well as posting on these networks our friends would check their phones frequently for likes. Students would compare their “like” numbers to others in their class as if it was a popularity competition. So much so we noticed that people would even delete a post if it failed to reach sufficient likes in their view.”
