Róisín and Méabh receive climate award at SciFest
Róisín Tunstead and Méabh Corcoran, winners of the EirGrid Cleaner Climate Award with Abbey Corr, EirGrid Engineer at SciFest Regional Competition, SETU Carlow.
TWO Presentation de la Salle College Bagenalstown transition-year students were the recipients of a climate award at the SciFest@College regional competition held at South-East Technological University recently.
Róisín Tunstead and Méabh Corcoran were awarded the EirGrid cleaner climate award after impressing the judges with their project titled A quantitative study of the toxic, persistent widespread tyre derived microplastics, which analysed the amount of microplastics from tyres that end up in the soil and its impact on human health and ecosystems.
Róisín and Méabh said they consulted different scientific studies that identified car tyres as the largest source of microplastics globally and used staining techniques and density separation to isolate the microplastics from other materials during their investigation.
Their project was selected from over 80 different entries from schools across Carlow and neighbouring counties, with projects spanning different topics such as health, physics, renewable energy and artificial intelligence.
Róisín and Méabh now progress to the SciFest national final in November, where they will compete for a chance to represent Ireland at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair.
Presentation de la Salle principal Michael Hickey said the school was extremely proud of Róisín and Méabh, who he described as enthusiastic and hardworking students with a strong interest in environmental science.
“We’re incredibly proud of the initiative our students Róisín and Méabh have shown with this project. They’ve taken on a complex and very real environmental issue and the level of curiosity, effort and commitment they’ve demonstrated has been outstanding. They have been strongly supported throughout by their teacher Mr Morrissey, whose guidance and encouragement have helped them develop their ideas and bring this project to life,” Mr Hickey said.
SciFest@College, now in its 20th year, is a nationwide STEM fair for second-level students and is held across 16 regional colleges across the country. Sponsor of the cleaner climate award, Eirgrid, said it is important to recognise the vital role that young people play in building a more sustainable future.
