An initiative aimed at mentoring teenage girls from undeserved communities had been instrumental in helping a Fermoy student win big in this year BT Young Scientist competition. Teen Turn works with DEIS and similar schools to provide teenage girls with the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the area of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), preparing them for third level.
Teen-Turn does so by providing pathways and grinds for young girls, teaching them how to create mobile apps and business plans, and linking them with some of Ireland s most innovative companies.
Throughout the Covid pandemic the initiative, partnered with Hays Recruiting, has continued its mentoring programme allowing students research STEM subjects and showcase their ideas at the annual Teen Turn SciFest.
Here s a project an aspiring winner of the BT Young Scientist competition could propose for next year s edition: What is exactly in the water in Kanturk that leads young people attending Coláiste Treasa to do so well in the annual exhibition of the country s brightest and most curious minds?
This year, like every year since 2015, the students of Coláiste Treasa have won a slew of awards, including two of the top four prizes, to the considerable credit of their teachers, their school, their parents and their community.
This being an extraordinary edition of the annual exhibition due to COVID, the virus which has almost brought the world to its knees, Ava and Isobel Hynes brought their considerable scientific talents to bear on the virus with their proposal, a research project into the attitudes of young people to the virus and the vaccine.