Clodagh Hegarty and Aoife Parsons, students from Davitt College, Castlebar, were recently awarded an Excellence in STEM award, for their project “The Education and Promotion of Breastfeeding to Children, Adolescents, and Adults” at Scifest 2016.
Scifest is an all-island science, technology, engineering, and maths initiative which fosters active, collaborative, and inquiry-based learning among second level students. This year saw a record number of more than 8,000 students exhibiting their projects in local and regional science fairs across the country. Clodagh Hegarty and Aoife Parsons were among the 58 students who went on to exhibit their 31 STEM projects at the All-Ireland Final held in the Marino Conference Centre in Dublin on Friday 11th November 2016.
The students created a questionnaire regarding breastfeeding. This survey was completed by more than 1,000 mothers and fathers. The students also engaged in heavy promotion around breastfeeding.
Scifest is funded primarily by Science Foundation Ireland, Intel Ireland, and Boston Scientific. Davitt College is a STEM school where Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths are subjects highly promoted within the school.
