In Mungret Community College we encourage our students to engage in a broad range of extracurriculars. The BT Young Scientist is the premier Science competition for Irish Secondary school students held annually in the RDS in January of each year.
The BT Young Scientist exhibition was an unforgettable experience. For me personally, I loved looking at all of the different physics projects. It brings me great joy to see the greatest young physics minds in the country doing interesting research and teaching me things about their project. It was so much fun to discuss our projects together, and to share our ideas and opinions on several different aspects of physics.
The most enjoyable part for me was working on the project. As an aspiring physicist, my dream is to do research on interesting and unique areas of physics. This project afforded the opportunity for me to do precisely that. By the end, I was somewhat of an expert on muon detection! The awards were merely the icing on the cake. Winning third place and the Institute of Physics award are moments in my life I will never forget.
The whole experience has given me the motivation to finish school on a high, to get to university and to study physics. The other projects inspired me to chase my curiosity and to learn more about the various aspects of physics, mathematics and chemistry. It is an experience I strongly encourage everybody to partake in. It will certainly change your life.
- Conor Quinlivan
In 2023 two projects were accepted to this year's BTYSE. Mr Hill worked with two leaving cert students (Conor Quinlavan and Aaron Waldron) on their project “Factors affecting Muon Flux Density” which was entered into the chemical, physical and mathematical section. In the previous academic year when the boys were in 5th year they travelled with Mr Hill to the University of Newcastle to work with the physics department there to develop the Muon Detector which they then used to run different tests to investigate its potential uses. Their project won an honorary award from the Institute of Physics and the project came 3rd in the overall judging of the senior group of the chemical, physical and mathematical section, which were both fantastic achievements.
The second project was ran by a TY student Ross O’ Carroll who worked with Mr. Collins on his project “comparing natural and artificial fertilisers” and was entered into the Biological Sciences section. His project compared the viability of using a hydroponics growing system to grow crops in place of traditional fertilisers. Ross’s project was designed well and he had great discussions with scientists in the field of Agriculture at the event. He has taken on board feedback to make modifications to his work and he will now be entering a similar project into the SciFest competition on April 20th in LIT and he is already preparing ideas for next years BTYSE application.
Both groups got to present their work to Norma Foley on her visit to the school and both groups represented the school fantastically well over the 4 day event in January.
If students are interested in Science/Technology or have an innovative idea they would like to develop into a project they are encouraged to attend BT Young Scientist meetings held on Mondays after school in room 8.
This year, 6 students from Mungret Community College were successful in their applications for entry into the BT Young Scientist competition of 2022. There were two group projects and 2 individual projects. We wish them all the best.
Grace Kelly and Rachel McKenna - Investigating young peoples attitudes towards sanitation and experimentation to produce a colour changing nail polish on exposure to bacteria.
Cathal Carmody and Kate Swift - To investigate if teenagers desensitized to war and violence due to the media.
Aadith - To investigate the attitudes of Irish people towards the Irish language.
Adeel - To investigate the changing attitudes and prejudice against Islams and Muslims
In 2020 we had two separate Second Year groups successfully gain entry to the finals.
Caitlin Talbot (Social and Behavioural Science Category)
Title: To investigate the attitudes of Irish Secondary School students towards global catastrophes.
Winner of third place in Social and behavioral junior category
Caitlin's project entailed a comparative analysis of literature and statistics to investigate how Irish teenagers view global catastrophes caused by climate change.
Actions
- Reviewing literature using online sources, academic journals, and textbooks.
- Sent out a survey using Google forms to 7 schools collecting data from 222 students
Outcomes
- Key findings included Irish teenagers are quite familiar with the causes of climate change and are more than willing to take action to stop it.
- Global catastrophes are increasing but a media bias only allows us to hear of certain ones
Cormac McMahon Heffernen and Aaroh Jain (Social and behavioral Science Category)
Title: Are You Cancer Aware