BTYSE: Students at Limerick school have the ‘ingredients’ to ‘make-up’ a great project

JOHN the Baptist Community School in Hospital submitted 19 projects for this years BT Young Scientist competition with four being chosen for next week's finals in Dublin.

Thrilled to be progressing to the next leg, the students and supportive teacher Jennifer Ahern shared details of their projects with the Limerick Leader / Limerick Live.

Motivated by the increasing importance of sustainability, Aisling Ennis and Róisín Murphy question whether sustainable make-up brands are the future of beauty products. “We realise how little we know about the ingredients used in products we use regularly,” they said.

Leah Dennehy, Eva Morton Murnane, and Katelyn Hickey look into the movement breaks incorporated by schools to decrease the CO2 levels in the classroom during Covid regulations. They found that students were more refreshed upon returning to class, in turn improving their mental health. “Mental health amongst young people is so important,” they agreed, “we want to help reduce [their] stress levels”.

Limerick students gear up for BT Young Scientist competition

Inspired by the increasing cost of rearing animals on Irish farms, Katie Halpin and Caroline Fitzgerald created their own app ‘Bull Accelerate’, to store and collate farm dockets and receipts. The idea came in an effort “to support the average farmer in keeping track of the costs of rearing animals and get an accurate idea of how much it costs to raise the animal.”

Wanting to find a way to quickly break down plastics, Kate O’Dwyer, Karen Cusack and Karen Harty investigate the effect UV light has on the breakdown of soft plastics such as PVC and PE-LD. “We want to use this opportunity to try and make a difference to our planet,” they stated.