Mullingar student at Bower takes major BTYSTE award
Science savvy students from Our Lady’s Bower Secondary School in Athlone scooped a total of six awards at this year’s BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, including the prestigious Trinity College Global Initiatives Award.
The Global Initiatives Award went to Leah Shaw, a Leaving Certificate student in the Bower, who entered the Young Scientist competition for the first time this year with a very topical project aimed at finding a solution to the global drought crisis.
Although Leah is from Mullingar, she chose to study in the Bower, and travels from her home on the Ballymahon Road in Mullingar to Athlone every day to join her fellow students in sixth year. She based her Young Scientist project, ‘Citrus Peels – an answer to global drought’, on her experience of seeing the devastating effects of the 2018 drought on her parents’ farm in Mullingar.
She began researching ways in which water could be stored in the ground, and this led to her discovering the presence of saccharides in citrus peels. She cross-linked the saccharides with oil from the skin of avocados to create biodegradable, chemical-free, and super absorbent polymers.
Leah found that when the polymers were mixed with soil they acted as a sponge to retain water, which was a breakthrough discovery in the battle to alleviate drought across the world.
Due to the prevalence of drought in parts of Africa, the young scientist linked her project to countries on that continent, and she discovered that not only would her discovery help to alleviate the drought conditions across many of the most water-deprived regions in the world, but the climate in Africa is also perfect for growing citrus fruits.
As well as winning the prestigious Trinity College Global Challenges Special Award, Leah Shaw’s project also took second place in the Senior section of the Biological and Ecological category, and she won a Display Award for the magnificent work she put in to displaying her project, which included a pair of hands moulded from plaster of Paris, a branch from a real tree and a large collection of polystyrene balls which were painted orange to resemble citrus fruits.