TY Young Scientist Entrants 2021
4th Year Entrants for BTYS
The first of October brought about the application deadline for the Bt Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition 2021. This year the exhibition will take place virtually from January 6th to 8th. However, this didn’t stop our students from entering. We have seven total entries with 6 of them being 4th-year students.
Hiba Shahzad and Isabella Watts.
Project Title: The Effects of ASMR on Stress Levels and Loneliness in Teenage Girls
This project will target students in our school, aged between twelve and eighteen years. Hiba and Isabella plan to show an ASMR related video to a select group of students. They will use a mindfulness video as their positive control and a non ASMR related video as their negative control to be shown along with the ASMR video to three separate groups. The pair will test the heart rate and temperature of the students before and after beginning exposed to the videos. They will also use the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to survey students for stress and a modified version of the UCLA to measure loneliness.
Hiba and Isabella said they chose this particular project because they recognise students are more stressed now than in years passed. They were curious as to the effect ASMR would have on this and saw BT Young Scientist as a perfect opportunity to test their theories.
Claire Johnson.
Project Title: Do virtual escape rooms help students to learn about laboratory experiments?
Claire plans to use Scratch, the programming app and language, to design a virtual escape room based on the topic of building circuits. She will compile a group of two hundred second-year students who are yet to complete the chapter on circuits in Junior Cycle science. One hundred students will be taught via the escape room, and the second hundred will be taught using traditional lab work methods. After both groups will be tested on the topic to determine whether or not the virtual escape room poses an equal or superior learning tool. Claire hopes that if the country were to return to full-scale lockdown, her virtual escape room could be used to teach topics in a new and interesting way.
Claire’s has been coding since primary school, almost six years. Competing in competitions and designing websites. This project was designed with this in mind, to help her make the most of her abilities and personal interests.
Lily Anderson, Adriana Ciot and Preethigaa Kumaresan
Project Title: Would exposure to a virtual interactive story affect how people perceive immunisation?
Lily, Adriana and Preethi intend to target a group of 100 people aged between twelve and forty-nine who are apprehensive about or opposed to being vaccinated with this experiment. The trio will design a virtual interactive story they hope will portray the importance of vaccination for not only the individual but society. Written text and an informational video will stand as non-interactive comparisons. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the groups, and their attitudes towards vaccination will be recorded before and after taking part. They will then use one-way ANOVA (Analysis of Variation) to determine whether or not there was a statistical difference between attitudes before and after the test.
Preethigaa based her CBA 2 on the topic of immunisation. The three all find this topic extremely interesting and topical due to the possibility of a Covid-19 vaccine. They hope BT will allow them to research it in greater detail.
Jess Joy and Niamh McManus.
Project Title: Could vertical farming be used as a more efficient farming method than conventional arable farming in Ireland?
Jess and Niamh plan to conduct their research using two groups of plants. One group to be grown inside and the second outside. They will grow the indoor group using the hydroponics system. Hydroponics is the cultivation of plants without using soil. The outdoor group will be grown using traditional methods. They will compare the results of both groups to see which group makes for more sustainable farming.
The pair chose this topic because of their CBA2. They researched a similar idea and were interested in exploring it in more detail for BT.
Natalie Arachchige, Sophie O'Leary and Nikolet Serbezova.
Project Title: Are people with a strong general belief in conspiracy theories, less likely to have confidence in the safety and efficiency of vaccinations?
Natalie, Sophie and Nikolet plan to target students and teachers from our school and schools in the surrounding area. They will compile a survey to send to their selected group. The survey will consist of statements based on general conspiracy theories and confidence in vaccination. The individuals will answer based on the five-point Likert Scale. They will then analyse the data collected using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient formula.
The trio chose this project area because of how topical vaccination is right now due to the upcoming possibility of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Eliza Monaghan Jane Oakley.
Project Title: An investigation on mask etiquette amongst girls and how it is influenced by social factors.
Eliza and Jane are going to design a survey to target the student body of our school. They are looking to write questions that will depict trends in mask-wearing and general opinions on facial coverings. They are also interested in how peer pressure and social media influence mask etiquette. Individuals who take the survey will answer using the Likert Scale.
Eliza’s mom makes masks for charity, because of this mask etiquette and trends are personal interests of the pair. They chose this project because of this but also since masks are such a big part of everyone’s lives today, making them very topical.
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Results on which projects were accepted into the competition will be published during the week of the 23rd of October. Until then, everyone should keep an eye on their inboxes and be open to taking part in BT Young Scientist related surveys to help these projects be as developed and interesting as possible.
Edited by Preethigaa Kumaresan.
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