Pictured: Scoil Mhuire 6th class.
Two primary schools from Sandymount were highly commended at the annual BT Young Scientist exhibition in the RDS recently.
Scoil Mhuire and St Matthew’s were praised by the judges for their excellent work. It took both schools months of work, from inception of the appropriate idea to the final completion of results and they finally had their reward of a big day out showcasing their science project to the general public.
Scoil Mhuire’s sixth class attempted to find out if eye colour makes a difference to the quality of your eyesight, while St Matthew’s sixth class wanted to discover if age or gender affects the ability to multitask. Two clearly debate-provoking questions then, that could also lead to some jovial rivalry between blues and browns, and girls and boys.
BT Young Scientist exhibition also has a Primary Science Fair that encourages younger participation and gives the students a taste for science and the protocols needed for science investigations. This was in evidence for both classes who were clearly enthusiastic about showing their project on display in the RDS this last January.
Pictured Above: Scoil Mhuire’s entry for the Young Scientist; St. Matthew’s 6th Class.
Scoil Mhuire set about their hypothesis by designing a survey that was completed by no less than 600 respondents. They actually sent out over 1,000 surveys initially so the marker for hard work was set out early. They found that the most prevalent eye colour in Ireland was blue and through their research they found that brown is the most common eye colour worldwide.
Although the blue-eyed respondents did hit the highest percentages in best eyesight, the class found out that eye colour does not have an effect on your quality of eyesight. However, through their extra research they did find that there are characteristics associated with different eye colours. Green eyes seem to be predisposed to jealousy, which is perhaps why the saying goes – beware the green eyed monster! Those with green eyes are hard to find, though, as less than 2% of the world’s population have the emerald eye.
St Matthew’s National School conducted several tests to find out the differences in multitasking for different ages and genders. The project was meticulous as it had to find out many comparisons at different ages and gender.
They made five tests that were used in their experiments, including riding backwards on a bicycle while doing another task and a reading test while you bounced the ball against the wall.
The results seemed to display that females were better than males at multitasking in every test so the next time you need someone to bounce a ball against a wall and read, get a female to do the job!
St Matthew’s sixth class were very enthusiastic about their findings, although the boys were curiously less vocal on this issue. One of the girls in class also remarked that the findings have been used against her, as her mum has got her to tidy her room more now that there is evidence that girls can multitask very well.
By Ferg Hayden
