Ireland: Marine award for college project – Fishupdate.com

CHARMAIGNE O’Connor and Carol O’Donnell of St Josephs College, Athlone, Ireland have won the marine award, which was sponsored by the Marine Institute at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition held at the RDS in Dublin last Friday.

The winning project, “The Impact of the Extraction of Water from Lough Ree to Dublin”, was entered in the Biological and Ecological section of the BT Young Scientist competition and highlighted the potential impacts of Dublin City Council’s proposal to extract 300 million gallons of water from Lough Ree on the environment and spawning of trout and pike in this region.

Dr John Joyce, communications manager of the Marine Institute said: “It is gratifying seeing the remarkable increase in marine related projects entered in the competition this year and I wish to congratulate St Josephs College on their award. We have been supporting the BT Young Scientist and Technology Festival for many years now and see it as an ideal window to promote marine science in the world of education.”

Both Ms O’Connor and Ms O’Donnell said completing the project made them realise the importance of maintaining and protecting the aquatic environment.

“We are delighted to win the Marine Institute sponsored award” said Ms O’Connor. “Starting this project in May 2007, we were able to examine the conditions that the pike and trout live in and found that if there is a significant drop in water levels, their environments would be significantly effected.”

The BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition received 1,416 entries for 2008 from 31 of the 32 counties. Five hundred of the projects submitted qualified and competed in the finals.

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