At an Intel science fair held in Pittsburgh last week, 1,500 of the brightest young minds from all over the world demonstrated that world-beating ingenuity is not the sole preserve of the experts
‘THESE STUDENTS aren’t learning science – they ARE scientists.”
These are the words of Wendy Hawkins, executive director of the Intel Foundation, as she spoke about the finalists of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair 2012.
The fair, which took place last week in Pittsburgh, saw 1,500 bright young minds from 68 countries taking part.
From cancer treatments and alternative energy generation to quantum tic-tac-toe and how caffeine affects sea urchins, this year’s projects displayed extraordinary complexity and intellectual curiosity.
“The ability to convert science into real- world problems they can do research on is meaningful,” says Hawkins.
“They are making real, concrete contributions to science. This is not trivial by any stretch of the imagination.”
The overall winner of ISEF 2012 Gordon E. Moore Award was 15-year-old high school student Jack Andraka, who developed a non-invasive pancreatic detection tool. Andraka’s research is literally life-saving; he has created a dip-stick sensor to test the level of pancreatic cancer biomarker mesothelin in blood or urine.
His method has more than 90 per cent accuracy and can detect pancreatic cancer at an earlier stage than current tests. Not only is it far less expensive than current tests, it is also 28 times faster and over 100 times more sensitive.
The Irish have also been enjoying success as ISEF 2012. This year four students brought three projects to the fair, two of which won awards. Ruairi O’Neill (16) and Eoghan Flynn (14) of Freshman Blackwater Community School in Waterford were among those awarded second place in environmental management with their project on alternative fuel generation from end-of-life plastics.
The Waterford students have generated a unique “polyfuel” by processing used plastics. This polyfuel is cleaner burning than conventional diesel and energy efficient in operation.
Some of the gas and petrol produced can be fed back into the system to provide the heating required for breaking down the plastic so nothing is wasted in this incredibly green recycling process.
The duo came up with the idea when they saw how much unrecyclable plastic was making its way to landfills. They thought it could be reused and so began their research. The unit for creating this polyfuel was literally made from things they found lying around the house: an empty gas cylinder, an empty paint can, bits of piping and the secret ingredient, kitty litter.
Their hope is that homes in the future will have the ability to recycle plastics and generate their own fuel using similar units.
Henrik Bruesecke (19), formerly of St Columba’s Comprehensive School, Glenties, Co Donegal, and now a student of computer science at Trinity College Dublin, won two awards for his work on optimally managing multiple computer processors. In addition to placing fourth in the category of computer science Bruesecke also took second prize from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers at Intel’s Special Awards Ceremony.
Bruesecke’s project is impressively advanced and would not look out of place among MA and PhD studies. This might lead you to believe that he had some help, but he in fact taught himself to code from scratch as a hobby and this project (using two different programming languages) is the culmination of his curiosity. He also begins an internship with Intel this summer.
The third Irish project was from BT Young Scientist winner Aoife Gregg (16) from Loretto College, Dublin. Gregg’s work involves cryptography and letter frequencies in the Irish language to create a tool that can date Irish documents within 100 years. She is also working on applying this to other languages.
Gregg says she was inspired by previous BT Young Scientist winner Sarah Flannery, whose work on the Cayley-Purser Algorithm won her global recognition and a bestselling book In Code – A Mathematical Journey.
Meanwhile the teachers who accompanied the students on their journey to ISEF 2012 were by no means resting on their laurels. Running in conjunction with the competition is an event called the Intel Educator Academy.
Educators, policy advisers and government officials from around the world meet to discuss Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) education policy and look at ways to improve and update science curricula.
Sheila Porter, founder and manager of the SciFest science competition, which has been running in Ireland since 2006, was in attendance to give a talk on establishing and maintaining a network of science fairs. She spoke about the importance of linking second-level science to university level as well as to government and industry.
“The science curriculum would benefit from being linked to third-level courses and from moving forward to meet 21st century skill requirements,” she said.
Porter and her colleagues are also keen to highlight the benefits of integrating regional and national science competitions like SciFest and the BT Young Scientist into science coursework.
Currently students taking part in these competitions can use their project as part of Junior Certificate Science Coursework B.
Mari Cahalane, head of the BT Young Scientist and Technology Competition and also taking part in the educator academy, says that awareness of this needs to be raised so that inquiry-based learning is linked closer to the curriculum.
Intel Foundation director Hawkins says the biggest problem with Stem education is that “we teach science as a string of unrelated facts that need to be regurgitated”.
Perhaps, with ground-breaking discoveries in cancer detection emerging from 15-year-olds, we will start to change how we nurture young minds and prepare the scientists of the future.
