1st Prize in the European Union Young Scientist Competition

Congratulations to Sophie Healy-Thow, Emer Hickey and Ciara Judge from Kinsale Community School on winning 1st Prize in the European Union Young Scientist Competition. They were presented with a Waterford Crystal trophy and a cheque for €5000. They now have the opportunity to represent Ireland at the 25th European Union Young Scientist competition which will take place in Prague next September.  
A total of 126 students aged between 14 and 21 took part in this 25th anniversary of the annual contest, representing 37 countries. 
Over the period of 11 months, the girls tested almost 10,000 seeds and took thousands of manual readings. Their research found that two types of the bacteria accelerated the germination rates of barley, which could help farmers to increase their yields.

Their project is based around Diazotroph bacteria, which are well known to have a symbiotic relationship with the legume plant family whereby the bacteria thrive while providing energy to the plant itself via the nitrogen fixation process. The project outlines an extensive experimental program to assess the impact of such bacteria on non legume crop species.