Lion class were lucky to get allocated a place at the BT Young Scientist Primary Science Fair on Friday 13th January. The group along with Ms Wright, Ms Cleary, Ms O’ Keeffe and Ms Scanlan set off at 6:30 am and returned at 9:00pm. It was a long day but well worth it. The class presented a project on ‘Solar Energy in Our Community’ The Primary section is non-competitive but each stand is visited by a number of judges. Our pupils received great praise from the judges. The official photographer remarked that our project was the best presentation he had seen throughout the exhibition. We had a visit from Micheál Martin, Tánaiste, who was very impressed with our pupils and their work. Huge thanks to Ms Wright for coordinating this project.
We’ll let the pupils tell you about their day out in their own words….
BT Young Scientist 2023
It was finally the day we had prepared for weeks for! I got up at half five, had a shower and off we went. When we got to school it was 6.20 a.m. and ten minutes later we were heading to the BT Young Scientist. On the bus I talked to my friends, played games and before I knew it we were in Dublin.
We had prepared a project on Solar Energy in our Community which included changing solar into electrical energy as well as energy in our diets. We prepared food chains as examples of energy in our diets and everyday lives.
We asked parents in our school community about solar energy in their homes. Then we took the data and made it into colourful graphs. We learned about the Solar Farms installed in Eli Lilly from Eamon Judge who came to visit us in Nohoval. Then for even more information for our project we did an experiment on Cress Seeds in different light conditions and solar ovens. Finally came the sticking it all together for our project- it was fun (stressful at parts) but fun! The day before we set off our class practised presenting our project to others teachers and put in the final touches.
As we walked into the RDS we found our stall and started setting up. Our group was not at the stall first so that meant we could have a look at all the exhibits. One of my favourites was a Virtual Reality head set that could make the scenery around you look like you were a supporter in a soccer match. It looked really cool! About an hour later it was our turn to stay by our stand. People came up to us and asked us what our project was about. The people loved our project!
While we were at the stand Eamonn Judge from Eli Lilly, who had helped us with our project, came over to us and gave us pizza. The pizza was very yummy. After all that delicious pizza my group went for lunch. After lunch, we went to the bottom of the lunch room. There was a girl teaching drums. Our group did a lesson, it was great fun!
Then we went to see a show called the ‘Secrets of Superhero Science’ and it was so cool, it had lights and cameras and everything!
Later in the day Michael Martin came up to our stand and we told him about our project. We got a picture with him.
We had time to look at whatever we wanted and then our school would meet up and leave. My friends and I took turns at doing games and we had lots of fun. We all went around together.
Then sadly, we had to get the bus back to Cork. We had a great day but we knew it was time to go home.
At three thirty we went back on the bus and the road. It had some bad traffic so it took us a while to reach Supermacs. Supermacs was great.
I sat in the back seats and we talked the whole way down until we sang songs. It was really dark now and we were tired by then but no one slept, I suppose we were too excited! The trip took around five hours including our stop but it was well worth it. I would go back go in the future. When we got back to school I was wrecked but overall it was a great trip.
Report by Charlie, Oliver, Róisín, Phoenix, Niamh, Judy, Sophie and Kate.
