Young Louth Scientists Put Projects on Show at Rds

A NUMBER of students from Drogheda are taking part in this year's BT Young Scientist competition investigating everything from a memory foam stretcher to Ecological life of old stone walls.Now in its 45th year, the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition will take place in January 2009 in the RDS between the 6th and the 10th.Thousands of students from all over the country applied to take part in the event and these were whittled down to a final 500 projects, 18 of which are from schools in County Louth.

The Sacred Heart will be represented this year by Transition Year Student Amanda Sheerin (15) whose project is entitled 'A Memory Foam Mattress to Reduce Complications in Casualties Immmobilised on a Spinal Board'.The project examines the usefulness of memory foam for reducing pressure under casualties on a spinal board and for supporting their lumbar spine.'She had a huge interest in biology and was involved in first aid.

From that, she made an observation that most people brought in from accidents were put straight onto a spinal board to avoid spinal injury,' explained her biology teacher, Deirdre Lynch. 'However, because of this there was a link between patients immobilised on spinal boards and pressure sores.'She explained that Amanda's father has a medical background and helped her to get the equipment.

'The girls are giving her a hand because she does need people to test on it and we had people over from Essex with testing equipment to try it out.'Ms Lynch said those who take part in the competition do so through their own initiative because they have an interest in the project. 'We don't force it on them.

'Grammar School student Joshua Joyce's project looks at 'The Ecological Value of Old Stone Walls'.The aim of this project is to look at how stone walls can have a greater potential to improve our environment than modern equipment can.'He's examining the walls to discover their ecological value, particularly in the area of Skerries and Balbriggan and especially around Church graveyards,' explained Science Teacher Ronny Hancock.

'He's working away on it at the moment, looking at, in particular, plants and wildlife around these old walls.'Three students from Our Lady's College Greenhills, meanwhile, are also taking part in the event. Aine Smith and Laura Shiels are examining whether there is a determining factor which influences the running speeds and winning power of young people.

Aoife Smith, Ruth McGuinness and Lisa Barry, in a project entitled 'Is There A Science Behind Baby-Holding' explain their reasons for choosing this topic: 'We want to find out why some people hold babies and young children on the left side of their bodies and others hold the child on the right.'The final project, entitled: 'An Analysis of the Dots-and-Boxes Game' , is the work of Mary-Ellen Smith and Helen McEvoy who are conducting a mathemathical analysis of a two person game played on a rectangular/triangular grid of dots. In this game, players take turns to join the dots.

'A completed square /triangle is claimed with their initial and the player with the most boxes wins.