Students from Beara Community School, Castletownbere were presented with the first STEM and Social Innovation Award sponsored by AbbVie at the 2017 Young Social Innovators of the Year Award. The awards were held in the Convention Centre Dublin earlier this month and attended by over 800 young people.
This new award recognises teams of young people who have used Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to solve an identified problem in their community. As part of the Young Social Innovators (YSI) Action programme, the team of students decided to address the issue of beach safety as one that concerned them.
2016 saw one of the largest infestations of Portuguese Man o’war jelly fish in Ireland in over 100 years. Living on the Beara peninsula, an area affected by the influx, the team produced a range of innovative information and display materials (using engineering and technology) to inform their community and visitors to the area of the dangers posed by these jellyfish.
The winning students are pictured are pictured with their YSI guide, Aoife Buckley and Robert Love, Director of Communications, AbbVie.
