The next top Young Scientist
AS THE SEARCH BEGINS FOR THE BT YOUNG SCIENTIST OF THE YEAR OLIVIA RYAN LOOKS AT THE WACKY AND WONDERFUL IDEAS DUNDALK STUDENTS HAVE BEEN WORKING ON
DUNDALK students are preparing to pit themselves against the best young minds of the nation as the 2017 BT Young Scientist, as the Technology exhibition begins next week. Louth has a long and proud history in the competition with a number of former winners hailing from schools across county.
The talent this year is equally high, with 17 different projects having been submitted from eight secondary schools
St. Vincent’s Secondary school are leading the way for Dundalk, with five projects and twelve students in total putting the final touches to their work this week.
Leah Finnegan, Damilola Alabi and Denise walsh who are competing in the Young Scientists and Technology competition with their project ‘ The Effects of Music on Sleep.’
The trio decided to examine ways in which to improve sleep quality, by looking at the impact of music.
‘For our project, we plan to investigate whether music affects sleep quality, and also the effects of low frequency music in comparison to high quality music,’ said Leah.
Also working on a health related theme for the Young Scientist exhibition are Rachel Campbell, Bronagh Cassidy and Aoife Lowth with their project entitled ‘Aria or manual? A statistical analysis into which method of grading retinal images for diabetic retinopathy is the most effective.’
The students have entered their project in the tough ‘chemical, physical and mathematical sciences’ category and as Bronagh explained: ‘We aim to statisically analyse a large sample of results from diabetic retinal screening as graded by manual human graders, and two different automated software programmes.’
Dearbhla McCourt and Ruth Clarke are looking forward to their first foray in the BT Young Scientists and Technology competition with their project ‘Park and Stride.’
The duo are analysing if there is a correlation between exposure to atmospheric pollution at peak traffic times outside of the school.
‘We will examine the hazardous atmospheric pollutants that are emitted from car exhausts, which children are exposed to during their park and stride endeavour.’
Eve Morrisey entered her individual project ‘ Do different sock materials affect the surface temperatures of the foot during racket sports?’ into the varied biological and ecological category.
‘I intend to find out using datalogging whether some socks contribute to more adverse skin temperatures than others during racket sports.’
The final project being put forward by St. Vincent’s is a look at ‘ dynamic versus static stretching, and the effect on flexibility of muscles in the bodies of racket sports players.’
Dundalk Grammar school have two transition year students, Zoha Khan and Roisin Murphy competing in this years BT Young Scientist exhibition in the RDS.
Their project titled, ‘ An investigation on racism in Irish and Northern Irish schools and the potential effects due to Brexit’, looks into the attitudes and views of teenagers on racism and whether their views have changed since the Brexit vote.
WATER CHARGES SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE PROPERTY TAX. THE BUDGET OF THE ORDINARY FAMILY IS STRETCHED TO BREAKING POINT