Four Laois schools were represented as students from all around the country presented their projects at the prestigious BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in Dublin on Friday.
The schools were Heywood Community School, Mountrath Community School, Portlaoise College and St. Mary’s CBS.
The full list of projects from Laois was as follows:
Heywood Community School
Students: Daniel Bergin, Cara Mezzopella and Rachel Dunne
Teacher: Orla Mooney
Project: Investigating how hydration affects short-term memory
Mountrath Community School
Students: Miriam Senior, Seana Dunne and David Fitzpatrick
Teacher: Laura Thompson
Project: Extracting latex from dandelions to make sustainable glue
Portlaoise College
Student: Seán Cheah
Teacher: Fiona Kelly
Project: Analysing how transitioning from primary to secondary school affects students mentally and academically
Student: Tomás Fox
Teacher: Fiona Kelly
Project: Developing a file manager application for searching media files
St Mary’s CBS
Students: Aaron Keane and Rhys Kelly
Teacher: Danielle Broomfield
Project: Investigating the health of chicks based on their hatching environment
Laois Offaly Fianna Fáil TD Sean Fleming, Minister for State, met with the students taking part and praised the ingenuity of their projects.
“All four schools should be incredibly proud of the students who represented them at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition,” Minister Fleming said.
“The projects were all fascinating and took a huge amount of time and effort from the students and also from their teachers.
“The quality of the projects is a sign of the quality of science and technology teaching in schools in Laois.
“I would strongly encourage schools across the county to consider taking part in next year’s event, which is a wonderful showcase of the talent that exists among our young people.”
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