This is the first year, post COVID, that Pres went to MTU for Scifest. During COVID the competition was held online).

Shiela Porter, the founder of Scifest, was present, interacting with the groups while they were setting up their stands and photographing and commending their work and innovation.

The standard was very high in this year’s competition, with 250 students representing schools from all over Munster.

Pres. had seven projects competing, including projects on: How music affects germination in seeds, Health benefits of Seaweed, Leptospirosis knowledge among Pres. rowers, Aerofoil shape, the effects of caffeine on performance in sport, Medicinal effects of Honey and even a project on how sweaty your socks get!

Our students had to explain their hypothesis and justify their experimental work, challenging in itself, and a skill that will serve them well in real life!

This was a great opportunity for our students to meet other young people with a similar interest in Science.

 A huge thank you to Dr Barbra Prestwich-Doyle who organised a fantastic morning at BEES in UCC along with Dr Deirdre Hennessy  and Dr Eoin Lettice who spoke of the role of Agriculture and the importance of plants in our lives.   Our students had an opportunity to visit the specimen museum and micropropagation labs.

Congratulations to 2nd Yr. student Conor Looney who represented Ireland in running recently. 

Conor was part of the junior mixed relay 4 X 1,500m representing Ireland against Scotland, England and Wales. The Ireland team placed third, so Conor and all in Pres. are delighted with his first international medal- doing Pres., Cork and Ireland proud!

The very best of Luck to Conor in his upcoming track events.  

SciFest is the largest second-level STEM fair programme in Ireland. Hosted locally in schools and regionally in third-level colleges throughout Ireland. 

In Pres. there were 7 Scientific Investigations projects in TY this year competing in the Scifest@school.

The winning project was ‘ investigation into the effect of music on plant growth’ by Daniel Ryan.

The Runner up project was ‘ investigation into the knowledge of Leptospirosis amongst PBC Rowers’ by Odran Murphy & Sumanth Gangadhara Swamy.

We also had a winner of the Eirgrid Award ‘ Investigation of the creation of lift by Aerofoil’ by Daniel Crowley and Ben Twomey.

Scifest Award winners are Daniel Crowley & Joe Healy with a project called ‘Does caffeine affect your sporting performance’

Well done to all the students that worked so hard on their projects all year, the projects are on display this week in the school in Social area B, in advance of the regional competition in MTU next week.

A group of our 4th year students recently took part in this amazing Intinn programme 

Intinn is a national film and mental health programme which offers Transition Year students in East Cork and Co. Waterford the opportunity to explore mental health, personal well-being and strategies of resilience through film and related workshops.

Since its pilot in 2019, Intinn has grown to reach 7,000+ students throughout Ireland both in person and online.