Big win for Coláiste Choilm duo
By Katie O'Keeffe
“We were absolutely thrilled to see our project on top, to see a social science project like ours win at a European level is amazing.”
Those were the sentiments of Cormac Harris and Alan O’Sullivan from Coláiste Choilm in Ballincollig after they took home the top prize in this year's European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) becoming Ireland's 16th winners in the competition's history.
In 2020 the Cork duo won the 2020 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, automatically sending them to the EUCYS.
The contest was set up to promote the ideals of co-operation and interchange between young scientists.
The EU Contest for Young Scientists is part of the Science with and for Society Activities managed by the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission.
Ireland’s success in the European competition is unparalleled with our young students winning first prize 15 times over the past 30 years.
Speaking to the Cork Independent about their win Cormac explained how the idea of their project entitled ‘A statistical investigation into the prevalence of gender stereotyping in 5-7 year olds and the development of an initiative to combat gender bias’ came about: “About two years ago we found the majority of people in our year choosing STEM subjects for the Leaving Cert were boys and the majority choosing subjects such as home economics were girls.
“We all had the exact same education growing up, so it made us go back to the very start of education to see if this gender divide exists so we interviewed a group of seven year olds.”
The findings of their project identified the need to focus on all children, boys and girls, from a young age, in order to combat the development of gender stereotyping.
“We asked people to draw a picture of an engineer and 95 per cent of boys drew a male engineer compared to just over 50 per cent of girls drew a female engineer which showed us that boys are limiting female abilities but girls are not limiting either gender's abilities, making it one of our most shocking findings,” explained Alan.
They don’t intend to stop their study any time soon either explaining that the number one thing for them is to get people talking about it. They said they hope to keep gathering sources and get their initiative implemented in some schools.
The winner of BT Young Scientist 2021 Gregory Tarr from Bandon was also competing in Europe.
He took home third prize for his project on deepfake videos which have become harmful in spreading disinformation across social media channels.
Mari Cahalane, Head of the BTYSTE, said: “I am incredibly proud of our BTYSTE alumni Cormac, Alan and Gregory who have represented Ireland so well at this year’s European Union Contest for Young Scientists. Cormac and Alan are now Ireland’s 16th winners in the competition’s history, and it is Ireland’s second consecutive first prize win - a fantastic achievement and a credit to level of innovative and STEM talent that the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition showcases each year.”
This year’s EUCYS were hosted virtually in Salamanca, Spain and young scientists, aged between 14 and 20 years, competed from 39 countries across Europe and the world. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this year’s event brought together contestants from 2020 and 2021.