“I just broke down in tears when I heard our name” were the emotional words of Moate Community School student Megan Carroll, who along with her colleagues Chloe Murphy and Abby Mullins won the Best Group Award in their category at this year’s 2021 BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition. Their novel project titled Wool – Saviour of Our Sea”looked at developing a special wool “ blanket” system to remove oil slicks.
Moate Community College truly hit the headlines this year, with the prestigious “Best School” award, and led the way in Westmeath in a very difficult year, due to Covid.
It was an incredible Friday, 8 January, all round for the Moate school as they scooped a total of nine awards in this year’s competition across a number of categories. Three of those were among the top awards; the best Group award in the Biological and Ecological category; the Best School award and Perrigo awards for Best Project and Educator of Excellence Award. The latter award was won by their teacher Mairead Cusack who was involved in guiding many of the students with their 2020 projects.
Given that this year’s competition was staged virtually due to Covid-19 restrictions, TY students Abby, Chloe and Megan were watching it from a social distance. “We were sitting there texting each other and once our category awards were named and we weren’t in there, we were like ‘Oh well, that’s that now and we haven’t won anything’,” explained Megan to Topic. “We were watching the rest and then all of a sudden, for the Perrigo award I heard our names and just broke down in tears. I couldn’t believe it! We were just all in shock and so proud of each other as well.”
‘We were just overjoyed, overjoyed’ – Moate CS principal
Moate Community School Principal Tom Lowry was beaming with pride when he spoke to Topic on Monday morning about how well the school’s students did at this year’s 2021 BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.
“We have always participated in the awards over the years but this is on another level. To win a category is a fantastic achievement for a school and this year we won first prizes in three categories, the overall group prize, we won a second in one category as well as the best project and best school. To be honest, watching them here online, we were just overjoyed, overjoyed,” said Mr. Lowry.
MOATE GUIDE
Apart from the achievements of Moate CS TY Students, Chloe Murphy, Abby Mullins and Megan Carroll, Moate CS also fared extremely well in many other categories.
Daragh Lowry and Conall Mandal took first place in the Intermediate Group of the Technology Category. These TY students designed an app, ‘Moate Guide’ for their project, An app to co-ordinate your awareness and knowledge of your locality. This app shows information on Moate and its significant places with pictures, sounds and narrations, along with quizzes and orienteering activities to target a younger audience.
They developed their ‘Moate Guide’ in the programming language Java using google supports. They carried out surveys to identify how they should design their app. They have introduced a prototype of the Moate Guide to their fellow students at MCS who found it user friendly and interesting. The students plan to increase awareness of the knowledge, history, sites, amenities, etc in their locality by making their app available to locals and visitors to the town.
MILK PROJECT
Aine Maxwell, Joyce Conway and Laura Conlon won first place in the Intermediate group of the Biological and Ecological category. In their project, ‘Stop milk spoilage; start seeing changes’, these TY students designed a milk carton, incorporating freshness indicators, that reduced milk spoilage and warns the consumer when milk is at risk of spoilage.
Initially, the group examined the changes in milk pH, sensory properties and titratable acidity when milk was stored at different temperatures. They also tested the effectiveness of a food-based indicators (tumeric, red cabbage, raddish) at indicating milk spoilage by producing a vivid colour change. Using their findings, they designed a milk carton, using a blue colour to minimise heat absorption and including smiley face motifs with thermochromic dyes, as a visual reminder to consumers to return milk to the fridge when the carton temperature increases.
DIABETES &
SUPERFOODS
Second Year students, Reuben Guinan and Kian Brady won first prize in the Junior Group of the Biological and Ecological category. In their project ‘Superfoods and their Effects on Diabetes’, the students analysed the Vitamin C, Sugars and Fibre content of various fruits and vegetables. They found that Vitamin C and Sugar content varied greatly for all fruits and vegetables analysed, red onions and peppers having the highest Vitamin C. They noted that fibre is important for people with diabetes, keeping their sugar levels low. They found when blending fruits like blueberries, the level of fibre is reduced, indicating smoothies may not be the best for diabetics. Fruit or vegetables containing the highest vitamin C and fibre levels and the lowest sugar concentration are most suitable for the diet of people with diabetes.
CONNEMARA PONIES
Shana Brady, Lauren Finan and Aine Broderick took second place also in the Biological and Ecological category. Their project ‘An Investigation on the Impact of Diet on the Prevalence of Laminitis among Connemara Ponies’, these second year students carried out experiments to determine which site is best for Connemara Ponies. These experiments included a habitat study, sugar content, dry matter content and a stem to leaf ratio experiment.
WASTE INTO BIOFUEL
Ava and Leah Hallissy along with Annie Duffy won a Highly Commended award in the Biological and Ecological category for their project ‘The Future is Bright: Turning Organic Waste into BioFuel’. The girls produced biofuel pellets from domestic compost like fruit and vegetable peelings. They thanked Dr. Sean Reidy and Christy Hopkins of the AIT for facilitating them.
