Mayo post-primary students are encouraged to get their entries in quickly for this year’s SciFest ahead of the deadline of Friday March 12. Last year Mayo student Aoife Bell from St Joseph’s College, Castlebar received an Intel Excellence in Science medal for her project entitled ‘Caffeine: A help or hindrance’. Entry forms for SciFest 2010 are downloadable from the website, www.scifest.ie SciFest is a national festival of science organised regionally in collaboration with the Institutes of Technology. It is open to all second level students. The aim is to encourage a love of science through project-based learning and to provide more opportunities for students to present and display the results of their scientific investigations. The SciFest initiative is jointly funded by Intel and Discover Science and Engineering as project partners. It is supported by a number of other partners, including BT, Dairymaster and Abbott Ireland and the Institutes of Technology. The project thus creates a valuable link between the second and third level education sectors and between education and industry.
“The aim of SciFest is to encourage a love of science and technology by offering students a chance to show off their projects to their peers and local community, while competing for national awards,” said Sheila Porter, SciFest national co-ordinator. “SciFest is also closely linked to the Junior Certificate science syllabus as students can use their projects for their Coursework B investigation. Hands-on activities in science are the key to developing students’ interest in the subject as they take learning out of the textbooks and link science and technology back to their everyday lives.”
As part of the partnership with Discover Science and Engineering, a Discover Sensors Award will be presented at each regional event. The Discover Sensors award is presented to a student science project which demonstrates a high level of application of investigative science methodologies that include the innovative use of one or more sensors for the collection, recording and analysis of data. This year will also see the introduction of an additional category for ‘Highly Commended’ students, which will give more students the opportunity to be rewarded for their interest in science.
Project Blogger will also be an integral part of the competition again this year. Following a successful pilot in 2008, Project Blogger was added as an online element to last year’s competition. Project Blogger, through the website www.projectblogger.ie, allows students to create individual blogs to record their SciFest entries and share their experiments with participating students from around the country. Such blogs can then form part of students’ exhibitions at SciFest events, tracking the project’s path from conception to completion by uploading images, ideas, graphs and video files to the web.
Please visit www.scifest.ie for further information and for entry forms. Projects are not due for submission until the end of April.
