St Mary's College, Londonderry, was named Best School from The North of Ireland at the BT Young Scientist Competition in Dublin on Friday 13th January 2012.
The school entered seven projects, the highest ever from a local school:
A Spoonful of Medicine by Lavina Blanking (Year 10)
How do different salts affect the freezing point of water? By Kennedy Keeney-Robinson and Nicole Mc Hugh (Year 10)
Catalase, Vitamins and Alzheimer’s by Grace Campbell and Haley Mc Guinness (Year 12)
The development and evaluation of a coffee based sunscreen preparation by Cara Molloy, Megan Mc Clean and Adele Cullen. (Year 12)
The development and evaluation of a handy indicator for Simvastatin and Ramipril Part II (Year 12)
Investigating the effect of metal ions on e.coli by Justine Munoz and Aoife Bolster. (Year 09 and 10)
Do contact lenses offer any protection against UV Radiation? By Victoria Harkin. (Year 12)
St. Mary’s gained seven awards:
Runners-up in two categories;
Lavina Blanking (Junior Individual, Biological and Ecological)
Saoirse Nash (Intermediate Individual, Physical, Mathematical and Chemical).
Special Award from the Irish Medical Board – Lavina Blanking.
Highly commended in two categories;
Kennedy Keeney-Robinson and Nicole Mc Hugh (Junior Group, Physical, Mathematical and Chemical) and
Cara Molloy, Megan Mc Clean and Adele Cullen (Intermediate Group, Physical, Mathematical and Chemical).
The MATRIX best overall Northern Ireland school award.
The INTEL educator of excellence award (Mrs Ann Blanking).
On Friday the 21st May St Mary's College and Lumen Christi College co-hosted the second Annual Schools Science Fair in the Millennium Forum. The aim of the Fair is to allow pupils from schools around the North-West the opportunity to showcase some of the excellent science work that they have done in Year 10 in Secondary School and Year 7 in Primary School.
The Fair follows the same format as the prestigious BT Young Scientist Competition held annually in Dublin and pupils' projects are displayed and assessed by a panel of Judges that includes representatives from local government, industry and education sectors. All pupils who presented projects received recognition for their efforts in the form of a BA Crest Award.
Other prizes were awarded to those projects which were deemed best in categories as indicated by the judges. Overall prizes were also awarded for the Primary School section and the Secondary School section of the competition.
Present also on the day were stalls and displays from many local science based industries and agencies which contribute to science within schools and provide subsequent employment pathways in this area.
This year St. Mary's also boasted the Overall winning project.
Indeed St. Mary's pupils also scooped top prise in the Letterkenny Scifest competition where they competed against schools from across the North-west and also in the University of Ulster Step-Up Science Fair in Jordanstown where they competed against pupils from 20 Step-Up partner schools from across Derry and Belfast.
Well done to St. Mary's Chemistry.
We look forward to more success in the year ahead and, in particular, to the 4 groups of girls who have qualified for the BT Young Scientist Final in Dublin in January.
In the academic year 2009 – 2010 St. Mary's pupils again achieved outstanding success in examinations.
66 of our Year 11 pupils completed their OCR Science GCSE with 100% achieving at least a grade C. Indeed almost a third of pupils achieved either a grade A* or A.
The remainder of the year group continued working on their BTEC portfolios with accreditation due at the end of next year. Currently over 90% are working at least at Pass level with many girls aiming for Merit or Distinction.
94% of Year 12 pupils completing the OCR Additional science achieved at least a grade C while 94% of pupils doing BTEC science also achieved at least a pass (double grade C). Quite a number of girls achieved a merit (double grade B) and 5 girls achieved a distinction (double grade A).
At A-Level 75% of grades were CC or higher with 100% achieving at least a grade EE.
Well done to all our girls and we look forward to more success in the year ahead!
St. Mary's College pupils who competed in the final of the BT Young Scientist in Dublin from Tuesday 12th January until Saturday 16th January.
St. Mary's College provided 7 of the 42 projects from N. Ireland at the final. One project – 'The development of an Odourless Fake Tan' by Danielle McGlinchey, Joanna Munoz and Maria McHugh received 'Highly Commended'. This project is still in development and the girls will be returning to the competition next year, hopefully with a complete product – an odourless fake tan!
The girls also appeared on UTV and TV3's 'Expose' programme to explain their project to the public. Their teacher, Ann Blanking, was nominated again this year for the 'INTEL Teacher of Excellence Award', the second time in as many years she has been recognised in this way. Mrs. Blanking will be setting off to San Jose in California in May, accompanying another group of St. Mary's girls as they compete in the world-wide INTEL Science Fair as representatives of N. Ireland, having won last year's Young Innovator's competition and INTEL Teacher of Excellence Award in Belfast. Principal Marie Lindsay said 'We are very proud of the girls and the work they have done on their projects. We are all looking forward to the development of their product and to using it next summer!'
In March and April '09 Year 9, 10 and 11 science students participated in the various Step-Up science engagement competitions. These included the Cookery Challenge', the 'Blazing ballistae challenge' and the 'Challenge Quiz'.
Pupils from St. Mary's were place in the top three in each one of these competitions in spite of the huge number of entries form Derry and Belfast.
Their prizes included MP4 players and, in the case of the 'Scrapheap Challenge' winners a day out for the four pupils at an Activity centre for clay pigeon shooting, archery, a hovercraft ride and other activities. These pupils were also provided with lunch before the presentation of their MP4 players. All pupils who participated thoroughly enjoyed their experience.
In May 2010 2 pupils from St. Mary's College won the overall prize at the Letterkenny Scifest winning ahead of over 150 other projects from schools across Ireland. Pupils from St. Mary's also picked up 5 other awards at the Scifest including best use of sensors in science and best Physics project.
Also in May two former pupils Aoife White and Nicole Lynch, who last year won the N. Ireland Young Scientist Competition in Belfast travelled to San Jose in California to represent Ireland at the world wide INTEL Science Fair competing against 1400 projects from 57 countries around the world in the world. Aoife and Nicole were highly praised by the judges and enjoyed the experience immensely.
On the 21st May St. Mary's co-hosted the North-West Schools festival of Science at the Millennium Forum in which over 250 pupils from over 20 schools from across the North-West showcased their science project work. Many local STEM industries were also represented on the day. Thanks to our many sponsors many great prizes were awarded and, this year, pupils from St. Mary's actually picked up the main award for best overall project.
On May 21st 2010 St. Mary's College co-hosted the North-West Schools festival of Science held at the Millennium Forum. Around 20 schools from all over the North-West submitted projects and judges from several local industries selected the winning projects. In addition around ten other local industries with science links provided stalls at the exhibition and the event proved to be a great success to rival the Young Scientist events in Belfast and Dublin. Again pupils from St. Mary's scooped the top prize of Overall Winner.
Congratulations to all the pupils who represented their school so well!
Listen to Nicole Lynch, Aoife White, and Mrs. A. Blanking on Radio Foyle:
In June 2009 St. Mary's College pupils Nicole Lynch and Aoife White were announced as overall winners of the 'Sentinus Young Innovators Competition'.
Their project - 'The development of Lycopene sun-cream' was to develop and manufacture a sun-cream based on the super-oxidant Lycopene.
Lycopene is a chemical present in different tomatoes and tomato based products and is the red colour which has been shown to have a positive effect on various cancers such as skin, prostrate and breast cancer.
Aoife and Nicole also won the Royal Society of Chemistry prize for the best Chemistry based project.
St. Mary's teacher Ann Blanking, the girl's leader on their project picked up the Intel Teacher of Excellence prize.
They received a trophy made of Bog Oak representing the ancient and a plate of silicon wafers representing the modern nature of science and technology.
As part of their prize the girls will also travel along with Mrs. Blanking on an all expenses paid trip to San Jose in California to participate in the world wide Intel Science Fair 2010 to compete against over 1400 project from 57 countries across the globe. They will spend a week in California.
Before then they also spend a week in Kildare at Intel's headquarters in preparation for their trip.
Previously in 2007 the girls won the Seagate Young Scientist competition and represented N. Ireland in London at the British Association for the Advancement of Science competition. The girls won the event in London.
Aoife White and Nicole Lynch, two pupils from St Mary's College, Derry, have arrived back VICTORIOUS from The British Association for the Advancement of Science CREST Awards, Young Scientists and Engineers Fair held recently in London.
They are the UK Silver Level CREST Champions! They beat entries from other regions throughout the UK.
This is not the first time they have tasted success with their project. They were overall winners of the Seagate Northern Ireland Young Scientist's Competition in June 2007.
It was through that Competition, that they qualified to represent Northern Ireland at The BA CREST Awards, Young Scientists and Engineers Fair in London.
Crest Awards are stratified as Gold, Silver and Bronze. Aoife and Nicole were representing Northern Ireland at Silver level. They were competing against other Silver level projects from the rest of the UK regions.
On Friday 7th March 2008, they were declared 'Best Silver Level Project Winners' at the Centre of The Cell, St Mary's University Hospital, Whitechapel.
Their project was on the topic of Lycopene – the RED colour in tomatoes. Lycopene is regarded as a 'Super Antioxidant' and is great at soaking up damaging 'free radicals' that can cause harm in the body. It has also been shown to help prevent certain cancers such as prostate and cervical.
The girls devised a method using Ultra Violet light that could be used to measure the amount of Lycopene present in different types of tomatoes and tomato based products, such as ketchups and sauces.
They showed that processed tomato products contained more bioavailable Lycopene than fresh tomatoes. They also discovered that some supposedly tomato based products contained hardly any Lycopene. This would suggest that there were hardly any tomatoes present in the products!
They hope to work with the University of Ulster, (through the STEPUP program) to further develop their project.
In November of last year, Sharmin Rahman, a lower sixth science student, won the prestigious Euroscola Photography Competition on Climate Change.
This was officially announced at the European Parliament Office in Dublin in December and Sharmin was congratulated by MEP Bairbre de Bruin.
The competition involved pupils taking a number of photographs depicting the effects of climate change in their own area. Sharmin's winning photograph illustrates this by demonstrating how some species of flower are blossoming later in the year when colder weather has normally set in. In her photograph new blossoms are shown alongside dead autumnal leaves.
As part of her prize Sharmin and 30 of her classmates in lower sixth science were invited to visit the European Parliament in Strasbourg for 4 days in January 2008.
This trip was fully paid for, apart for the money pupils needed for shopping!
During their visit pupils and the 3 accompanying members of staff were invited on walking tours of both Traben Trarbach in Germany and of Strasbourg itself. On Friday the group visited the European Parliament Building in Strasbourg for a series of workshops and discussions on Climate Change and other topical issues.
They were joined by pupils from schools from right across Europe.
All pupils and staff really enjoyed the once in a lifetime experience of visiting the Parliament and indeed the entire trip.
In June of last Year Nicole Lynch and Aoife White from Lower sixth science were announced as overall winners in the N. Ireland Young Scientist of the Year Competition. Their project 'Ketchup on Lycopene' was to determine the amount of Lycopene present in different tomatoes and tomato based products. Lycopene is the red colour and it has been shown to have a positive effect on various cancers such as skin, prostrate and breast cancer.
These pupils will be attending the UK Final of the BA Science Fair in London on the 6th and 7th March 2008. They will be representing N. Ireland at Silver Level at this event.
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