21 minute read
hIsTorY The story of the Young Scientist Exhibition
hIsTorY
The sTorY oF The YoUnG scIenTIsT eXhIBITIon
The sTorY oF The YoUnG scIenTIsT eXhIBITIon
It is five decades since the first Young Scientist Exhibition took place and over that time the event has become renowned on the island of Ireland and internationally. each January students from across northern Ireland and the republic of Ireland descend on the rDs, Dublin, to take part, while thousands more arrive to visit the stands and talk to their peers about the projects on display.
The BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition reaches out to young people from all parts of Ireland, both north and south. It encourages them to take part and submit a project in the hopes of being one of the 550 that will finally make it onto the display floor at the RDS. These 550 will have been whittled down from an entry pool that now includes 2,000 projects submitted for consideration.
It is a massive event to organise and stage, something BT has been doing since 2001. BT provides funding, resources and staff to run the event, also working in partnership with key supporting sponsors such as the Department of Education & Skills in the Republic of Ireland, Department of Education in Northern Ireland, Intel, RTE, Elan and Analog Devices. And yet it is the students who take part that are at the very heart of the Young Scientist Exhibition, they are the reason why the whole thing happens. The fact that the exhibition is so strongly student-focused is not by accident. Co-founders Rev Dr. Tom Burke and Dr. Tony Scott designed it to allow the students themselves to take centre stage and to make it their own. They do the work and present it, talking to judges, media and visitors with a remarkable degree of confidence, something which grows over the four days of the event, and which they will take away for the rest of their lives.
There is also a less visible but vital contribution - that made by the teachers who help the students take raw ideas and turn them into projects. The teachers encourage and assist and help keep the students committed to finishing the project on time. They are both the inspiration and the guiding hand needed to keep the projects focused. The exhibition came into being almost by accident. Burke was a Carmelite priest and physics teacher, and Scott was a physicist staff member at University College Dublin who was working towards a PhD. The two had collaborated on various research projects into atmospheric physics and had published papers which came to the attention of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Based in Socorro, New Mexico, the Institute invited the two Irish researchers across for a visit and to use a highly successful Irish-designed measuring instrument to help calibrate an instrument available to the Institute.
This visit prompted another, one that would have unexpected but long-enduring consequences. Staff at the Institute told Burke and Scott that a local student was entering a project on rocketry in a “science fair” in Albuquerque, and that the student was anxious that the two Irish physicists see it. Curiosity about the project, but also about what a science fair involved, got them interested and so they found themselves at an empty parking lot at the Hilton Primary School in Socorro in the late summer of 1963.
The student – Scott believes his name was Gary – was waiting there for them, to demonstrate his project. Scott took a picture of Burke and Gary and the student launched the rocket, before launching a second to show that the first was not a fluke. The Irishmen were suitably impressed and wished the student well as he prepared to compete in the science fair. This seemingly unimportant meeting proved to be the catalyst that in turn helped to bring about the first Young Scientist Exhibition about 18 months later.
Scott completed his work with the Institutes’ researchers before going off to an atmospheric physics conference at University of California, Berkeley. Burke, however, wanted to learn more about these science fairs and so he travelled the 75 miles up to Albuquerque. It was a revelation. Here he saw projects from schools near and far, to attend an event that brought science out of the confines of the classroom and into the real world. The students learnt how the science they presented in their projects had relevance away from the text books and restricted curriculum, as they pursued their ideas and see where they led. “I wanted to see Irish Young Scientists bringing science outside the four walls of the classroom and showing that science was all around us,” said Burke of the experience.
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The sTorY oF The YoUnG scIenTIsT eXhIBITIon
Burke talked to the organisers about how to go about holding one of these events and the ingredients needed to make it happen. He thought that students in Ireland should benefit from participating in real science and real research. When Scott returned from the US, the pair met as the new term got underway at UCD and began to formulate a plan of action.
The US model of a science fair involved an individual working on a project on their own. Often the science involved was beyond the capabilities of a secondary school student and so they formed links with the local universities, tapping into the expertise there and gaining access to advanced equipment
that could be used to collect data. This meant that many projects involved in the US fairs were the presentation of research findings assembled by others and then delivered in the form of a student’s project. Burke and Scott wanted something different. They wanted the students to become the centre of attention, not the equipment nor the university experts. The students should choose projects where they were mainly able to conduct their own research using the facilities to hand, ending the reliance on external technology as much as possible. The new model meant that the students would be able to make a research proposal, conduct their own experiments and gather the data they needed to answer their research questions.
They also decided that the event should not be described as a competition, Scott said of their discussions. “We didn’t want to create winners and losers. We wanted an exhibition, an environment where all of the students would have a chance to display their project and talk about it. Every student would have an opportunity to explain what exciting things they had discovered.”
There was also the thorny issue of money to be dealt with. The US science fairs, at their most basic level were individual school events where students interested in science could prepare projects and then display them to the general student body. This meant all costs were internal to the school and the teachers or school heads could judge the projects. The winners from these events could then be proposed for regional events and so on up to state and national level. These events, such as the fair in Albuquerque, therefore needed financial support to make them happen, funding from a sponsor who could keep the event running year after year. But who then could Burke and Scott approach in search of funding? Luckily, for the emerging Young Scientist event, Ireland had only recently embarked on a “Programme for Economic Expansion” that included amongst other things a determination to bring industry to Ireland. Aer Lingus, the young Irish national airline, was finding its way in a very competitive but highly technology-dependent international industry and it was becoming a flagship example of what the Irish could do. Scott knew people in the semi-state company whom he could approach with a radical proposal. His goal was to convince this high-profile technological company to support the science and technology students it would need in the coming years to help expand its business. To Burke and Scott’s delight, Aer Lingus agreed to back them, becoming the main sponsor and getting the exhibition off the ground.
Then began an enormous amount of organising, circulating letters of invitation to all the schools encouraging them to support students with project ideas and helping them to get to the exhibition. They called on academic colleagues to volunteer as judges and help pull the various elements of the exhibition together. Burke became the champion of the event, becoming a spokesman for the media and chairing related meetings. Scott describes himself as a backroom worker, dealing with post, chasing school involvement and encouraging teachers to play a central role providing guidance and encouragement to the students.
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The sTorY oF The YoUnG scIenTIsT eXhIBITIon
Burke and Scott watched that rocket launch in New Mexico in the late summer of 1963. It would take them until January 1965 to deliver Ireland’s first national science fair – known as the Aer Lingus Young Scientist Exhibition. The relationship proved to be a long-standing one with Aer Lingus remaining as main sponsor for the next 33 years until ESAT assumed the role in 1998. A total of 230 students attended the first exhibition, so even from its earliest days the event managed to attract plenty of students with a love for science. The inaugural event took place in the Mansion House Round Room but the large number of projects on display proved to be a tight squeeze. Burke and Scott found a ready supply of judges, academics and science graduates willing to volunteer their time in support of the sciences. In that first year they had decided to break the projects into categories based on the school science subjects, and the judges were selected to match this mix. The subjects included physics, chemistry, biochemistry, geography and mathematics. Scott made efforts over the years to identify the student in Socorro, New Mexico whose invitation to two visitors from Ireland had helped to make the exhibition happen. He even went so far as to put ads in the local New Mexico papers but he never managed to track that student down. He had no difficulty staying in touch however with the first winner of the Young Scientist of the year title, John Monahan from Kildare. His entry was an explanation of the process of digestion in the human stomach with a display including flasks and tubing to show how the whole thing worked. John went on to take a degree in science before working in the emerging biotechnology industry in the US, including forming his own company.
The exhibition had proved to be a great success, with students and their teachers delighted to have taken part. Burke and Scott were also very happy about how things went, even if they had yet to set up formalised procedures for entering, judging and so forth. They also realised that they were already victims of their own success. There was no question that they needed a bigger venue as they were confident that the second Aer Lingus Young Scientist Exhibition was going to include more projects. The hunt was on for a larger venue, one that would not run out of space in a year or two. That venue proved to be the RDS. Scott had only recently joined the RDS science committee and he put the idea to the Society. Promotion of science is one of the body’s five foundation activities (along with agriculture, arts, industry and equestrian sciences) and agreement was quickly reached on the new venue. Promotion of the public understanding of science was a key area for the RDS and the exhibition certainly did that, not just for the students but for visitors too. So, from its second year, the exhibition has been held in the RDS Main Hall, where there is enough space for the 550 projects that are displayed, along with the Primary Science Fair and the large parallel exhibition held at the back of the Main Hall.
The next few exhibitions were similar to the first with the exception that interest grew quickly as students and teachers heard about the event and wanted to take part. The number of projects increased in line with this but new challenges arose. Biology was and remains the senior cycle science subject that attracts the most students and so naturally more and more biology projects were submitted. Having too many projects in any one subject was not considered a good thing - this was meant to be a general science exhibition, not simply a biology exhibition. To balance this, the organisers sought out sponsors who could back category prizes across the range of sciences. Scott was a founder member of the Institute of Physics in Ireland and he asked the body to back a special award for the best physics project. The Institute became the first to make a special award which was given in 1981. Other companies and bodies agreed to give special awards and today there are dozens of awards celebrating student projects across a wide range of areas.
Changes also took place in the categories into which the various projects fell. The social sciences were first included in the 1980s due to student interest in subjects and the submission of project proposals that were not necessarily about science. While these projects were outside the science area they did involve a great deal of research and organised thinking in order to define a problem, develop ways to gather data and then interpret what had been discovered. In 1990 the categories were reconfigured into three areas, social and behavioural sciences; chemical, physical and mathematical sciences; and biological and ecological sciences.
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The sTorY oF The YoUnG scIenTIsT eXhIBITIon
In the late 1990’s a more fundamental change in the set up of the Young Scientist Exhibition represented a major milestone in the development of the event. Aer Lingus had been there from the very beginning and had been a wholehearted and dedicated supporter over an impressive 33 years. Aer Lingus has very much earned the gratitude of the exhibition and its organisers for its engagement with the Young Scientist over more than three decades.
The departure of Aer Lingus meant that a replacement sponsor needed to be found, with all that entailed. The exhibition had grown to a point where staging it had become a major operation and any sponsor who took it on would have to commit to more than simply the financial support required. They would need to have a deep commitment to the aims and ambitions of the exhibition, which by the late 1990s had become an institution. The exhibition had become much greater than the sum of its parts, including attracting major media coverage. Whoever took on this event would have to do much more than write a few cheques.
Telecommunications company ESAT then stepped into the breach. A new entrant to the rapidlygrowing communications market, the company’s commercial ambitions were backed with a dynamism that matched the vigour at the heart of the Young Scientist Exhibition. Given that changing landscape of business and education a new category, Technology, was introduced and the event was rebranded the ESAT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition in 1998. ESAT was a good match for the exhibition as it was involved in an emerging technology to which people, particularly younger people, were flocking. Mobile phones had become a standard consumer item and their use was rocketing. This was where the young people exhibiting at the event lived and the ESAT company ethos matched their lifestyles. The youth-based competition, if anything, became even more youthful and effort was undertaken to make the exhibition more exciting for the students, for example by expanding the exhibition area where students could talk to people involved in science and technology as a career. They could see how what they were doing with their project work actually carried forward as something that could give them an interesting job in later life. ESAT also recognised that the more teachers who engaged with the exhibition, the greater the likelihood that students would take part. Special awards for teachers were introduced including travel awards, which allowed teachers to travel overseas to science fairs particularly in the US.
These changes were working through the system when a major change occurred. BT acquired ESAT in early 2000 and delivered its first exhibition at the RDS in January 2001. BT’s involvement transformed the event, not just with its new name, the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, but with a number of new innovations.
BT made a decision to increase its support for the event both financially and logistically. It put together a dedicated team of BT employees to organise the exhibition and streamline how it ran. It introduced PR expertise to ensure there were smooth channels of communication between the media and the event itself, and computers and advanced communications facilities were installed to bring the judging and awards systems into the digital age.
The company also went to work on the physical facilities on the ground. New stands were designed, with large archways set up to designate the four project categories. The exhibition space was increased to the rear of the main hall and the 2,000-seater BT Arena was built adjacent to the main display area where the opening and awards events were staged and where special performances could be held for the students during the running of the exhibition. The arena’s huge open stage and powerful sound and lighting systems is an impressive sight for the students and all visitors to the event. And students who win prizes can feel like real celebrities when they go up to accept their awards. This feeling is multiplied for those who capture the top four prizes for best group, best individual and runner-up awards. The outright winning project, designated the BT Young Scientist & Technologist of the Year, happens to a fanfare, a cascade of confetti and booming music. The effort put into the awards presentations really helps to make the students feel special.
BT’s involvement also delivered another profound change to the event. It began putting more resources into growing the number of projects submitted for the exhibition. Schools were canvassed,
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there were outreach activities to help more teachers become involved and the Young Scientist website was improved, both to encourage students to take part but also to provide information for teachers. The company also began to promote the event more, helping to boost visitor numbers, both student visitors and members of the general public. In 2006, it introduced an accommodation grant scheme to help schools away from Dublin to assist their students to participate in the exhibition and has granted almost half a million euros over the years. There were immediate results to these initiatives with year-on-year increases both in the numbers of projects submitted and the numbers of students involved in these projects. In 2003 there were 910 project entries, almost double the number of places that could actually be accommodated. For this reason the number of stands at the RDS began to creep upwards so that more students could take part. For the 50th BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2014 2,000 projects were entered, setting a record with the highest number ever.
BT’s success at boosting participation also meant however that a pre-selection process is needed to select the maximum 550 projects who go forward to exhibit in the RDS. This in turn has meant that the standards have gone up, with only the very best projects making it through to the competition.
The BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition has become a model not just for developing science but for developing enterprise and community. The event brings students together and makes them neighbours even though their schools might be counties apart. It helps build on that sense of community for the students and it also helps to show in a very concrete way both for students and visitors, the link between research science and life, and the application of technology and innovation in support of economic development. Does the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition have the legs for another 50 years? Co-founder Scott won’t predict but remains quietly confident that the event has much more to achieve. “I can only say today it is more successful than I could have imagined,” he says. “But that success is not down to myself and Fr Burke alone. Continued success will be fired by the imagination and hard work of future generations of young people and the continued commitment of community, business and state institutions to what has become not just a key event, but a social focus on part of Ireland’s social culture.” Every year is memorable for the students who participate and, of course, for the winners of the top group and individual prizes. It is an experience that the students will always carry with them. And yet there are years when something out of the ordinary happened or an unusual project captured the public imagination, occurrences which made the event even more memorable for those attending the RDS. The exhibition was only in its second year when the first female won, Mary Finn then attending Ursuline Convent, Sligo who took the top prize in 1966 with her project.
The exhibition in 1968 was memorable because it had to be postponed, moving from its usual January slot to April. There had been an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and the government had banned large meetings and events for fear of the disease spreading across the country. The winner in that year was George Reynolds of St James CBS, Dublin, with a project on a geophysical study of an iron mine in Wicklow.
The exhibition was eight years old when the first students from Northern Ireland became involved in the event. It only took two more years for them to capture a win, when in 1974 Richard Elliot of Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh won with a project looking at the use of computer techniques to provide mathematical models of biological situations. Who can forget the year of the big freeze, 1982. Co-founder Tony Scott remembers the year well and how close the organisers came to shutting the exhibition down on health and safety grounds. The event was already underway and the decision was on a knife edge but they agreed to continue. Main sponsor Aer Lingus brought in industrial heating units to warm up the exhibition area and students and judges were bundled up against the cold.
Most of the Dublin participants managed to make it in but those up from the country were effectively
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stranded in hotels across the road from the RDS, participating in the exhibition, but getting an extra two days in Dublin as they waited for a thaw. Amongst them was Martynn Sheehan of the Convent of Mercy school, Moate, Co. Westmeath. She won with a project looking at the potential of using lichens in medicine.
All of the projects being displayed at the Young Scientist Exhibition in the early days were prepared by individuals, and co-founder Fr Tom Burke felt that it should remain as individual projects. His first exposure to a US-style science fair involved students working alone, but eventually he was persuaded that the exhibition should allow both individual and group projects. This innovation was introduced in 1976 and it was not until 1983 that the first group captured the award for Young Scientist(s) of the year. The project called ‘Microcomputer based robotics’ was won by a group of boys, Turan Mirza, Gareth Clarke and William Murphy from Carrickfergus Grammar School, Co. Antrim. Perhaps surprisingly, there has only been one year when the Young Scientists were a project involving both boys and girls. This came in 1987 when Henry Byrne and Emma Donnellan from FCJ Bunclody, Co. Wexford were announced the winners.
Sarah Flannery’s Young Scientist win in 1999 was also memorable, not for the weather but for the fact that her project made international headlines, for example making the front page of the London Times. Her project, “Cryptography – A new algorithm versus the RSA”, was a study into the encryption systems used by banks and governments to keep information safe. The then 16-year-old developed a new encryption system and then compared it against the world’s leading system, RSA.
She won the top prize but also got the world of cryptography buzzing because initially it seemed her system performed better than RSA, something that if proven would have made it worth millions. Huge public and media interest followed, but it later emerged that while extremely secure, she had not bettered RSA. She and her father later wrote about her experiences in a book, In Code: A Mathematical Journey. The impressive projects that win the top prizes at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition first moved on to take part in the European Contest for Young Scientists in 1989. This added a new, international flavour to the Young Scientist movement here, particularly because our students immediately started to win top prizes. In fact that first year when the competition was held in Brussels, Grace O’Connor and Sinead Finn of Ursuline College, Thurles, Co. Tipperary won with their project on a Study on a Crop Fractionation Industry. And our Young Scientists continue to capture top awards at the European Contest, most recently in 2013 when Ciara Judge, Emer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow won the top prize in the biology section with their project on the statistical investigation of the effects of diazotroph bacteria on plant germination. Irish students have won a top award in 15 of the 25 European Contests in which they have participated, an impressive haul given many of our students are teenagers compared to European competitors who can be in their early 20s.
