Louth schools shine at Scifest regional finals
DUNDALK Institute of Technology (DkIT) welcomed some of the most inquisitive minds in the region to its campus for the SciFest regional programme.
Hundreds of secondary school students from Louth, Dublin, Cavan, Meath and Monaghan exhibited their Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) projects to compete for the coveted title of SciFest 2018 Regional Finalist.
With more than 130 projects on display investigating everything from the ‘scientific truth behind the 5-second rule’ to the ‘effect of texting on thumb sensitivity in young people’, the judges had a difficult task in shortlisting just 13 regional winners.
In Dundalk in Colaiste Ris, three students investigated a topic which resonates with their peer group by looking at the effects of varying hours of sleep on young teens and their mental responses. They compared 7 and 10 hours sleep on the response times of males and females to the Brain Academy game.
Jack Conlon explained, ‘we chose this project because we are in Transition Year and we know students nowadays spend more and more time on their phones and watching TV.’
‘We didn’t know how bad it was to stay up late with our phones and we decided to test (this) with more sleep and less sleep and how your reaction is, if you have a quicker reaction time or if you are slower or have a better score or not.’
Nathan McKenna said, ‘we tested boys and girls who were over 15 and under 15.’ While he said there was ‘no clear distinction between each one, we found in memorising the girls did better than the boys with less sleep.’
Teacher Christine O’Hare said the projects entered from the school, ‘are of a very high standard and a very rich diversity in the types of projects, it is not all in one particular category. I think that adds to the different interests students have in the different aspects of science and it shows it is a very diverse field.’
DkIT President Michael Mulvey said, ‘We are happy to host this because DkIT has a very wide range of programmes in the STEM area including Science, Agriculture, Engineering and Computing and we have a very good record in terms of individual attention and completion rates.’
‘DkIT is located in an area on the Belfast Dublin corridor which is increasingly the centre for development in terms of the Pharmaceutical Industry. There was great news of the Chinese company WuXi recently announcing 400 jobs in our region adding to the jobs already created in this sector to date. We are very much at the heart of developments in this area and are keen to continue supporting this. We look forward to welcoming more international and national companies.’ St Vincent’s Secondary School students Aoife McQuillan, Kayla Darby & Ciara Gorham win Best Junior Life Sciences Project at SciFest@ DkIT 2018