Kinsale's young scientists impress

KINSALE Community School was pleased that seven of its projects qualified for this year’s BT Young Scientist and Technology exhibition in the RDS in Dublin, which was opened by President Michael D Higgins. Two of them were among the prize winners with another two highly commended.

Kinsale Community School has a remarkable record of successful participation in this prestigious event, having been awarded the overall prize on three separate occasions.  Over 550 projects were exhibited across four categories: technology, biological and ecological sciences, social and behavioural sciences and chemical, physical and mathematical sciences.

Sixth year student Jennifer McCarthy won first place in the Chemical, Physics and Mathematics category. Jennifer completed her project, titled ‘Helping Hemp Heal: The design of a nano-formulation to increase the absorption of Cannabidiol in the gastrointestinal tract,’during the past summer and received huge amounts of attention from both the judges and the public.  

She also received the Eli Lilly special award, recognising her excellent use of chemistry in her project. Ryan McCarthy, a first year student, achieved third place in the junior individual Social and Behavioural category for his project, ‘A statistical study of the attitude of parents towards protective clothing and injury prevention in rugby.’

Highly commended in the Biological and Ecological category were Laoise O’Mahony and Orla Good with their project,  ‘An investigation into the effects of soil compaction on autumn carbon sequestration in grassland soils’ 

In the Social and Behavioural category, Sarah Deasy, Ben Loughnane and Ben McCarthy were highly commended for their ‘Statistical study into the financial sustainability of the agricultural sector in Ireland’ project.