Eight of this year’s top BT Young Scientist awards, including the overall winners, went to one school, Loreto Secondary School in Balbriggan, Co Dublin.
Their stories illustrate the key to success in this competition – you need talent and you need the kind of school that will encourage and support independent extracurricular inquiry.
These Loreto students clearly had both.
Maria Louise Fufezan and Diana Bura won the top prize for their project, entitled 'An Investigation into the Effects of Enzymes used in Animal Feed Additives on the Lifespan of Caenorhabditis Elegans'.
The girls will go on to will also represent Ireland at the 28th European Union Young Scientist competition in Brussels.
Runuka Chintapalli received awards in three different categories, and Emily Tierney, Khadija Gull and Maria Wyzykowska also picked up trophies.
Most of the girls are first-generation Irish, most born here but with parents from Romania, Poland, Pakistan and India.
One of the girl is of mixed Irish-Asian heritage.
They all credit the school and their teachers for their success.
Most of all, they say the school’s Tuesday lunchtime science club, open to all students, was key.
