St Mel's, Longford come out on top in regional science quiz
To celebrate Science Week 2022, TUS Athlone (formerly AIT) hosted a number of events from November 13 through to November 20.
One of these was the annual ISTA (Irish Science Teachers Association) regional quiz held in the Nursing building for the first time since 2019.
“It was great to be back in person. We had a full-house of over 120 enthusiastic students, teachers and parents with greater than 30 teams in attendance. It is a three-person team table quiz with the winners getting €100 each, 2nd place €50 each and third place €25 each,” the organisers told the Leader.
The combined science scholars of regional schools took part in the Midland regional science quiz hosted by the Department of Life and Physical Sciences at Athlone Institute of Technology.
With over 14,000 students on six campuses in Ireland’s Midwest and Midlands, TUS is one of Ireland’s newest and most unique Technological Universities.
The table quiz had three to a table, 8-10 rounds of six questions all from the Leaving Certificate Chemistry, Biology and Physics courses. St Mel's College claimed first and second spot.
Claiming the first place spot for St Mel’s College, Longford was a team composed of Diarmuid Caslin, Ikedike Eze-Ezikme and Ronan Courtney. Picking up second place for St Mel’s was Alex Davidson, Darragh Caslin and Mel O’Brien. The third place spot went to the Moate Community School team of Conall Mandal, Laura Conlon and Nadia Zydek, while the fourth place went to the Athlone Community College team of Clodagh O’Brien, Kimberly Akwenuke and Bryan Armstrong.
The organisers thanked everyone who supported the event saying: “Many thanks to the Security staff, TUS East campus, Oliver from TUS Catering, Sarah O Brien, TUS PR Office, TUS Science students (Katelyn Quinn, Daniel Fitzpatrick and Hong Ann Gan) and the local ISTA teachers led as always by Seamus Donnelly, (Scoil Mhuire, Strokestown) for the smooth and efficient running of the quiz.”
The quiz is run in a number of centres around the country at the same date and time. Schools from the region - Tullamore, Longford, Mullingar, Roscommon, Strokestown, Castlerea, Ballinasloe, Ferbane, Moate, Ballymahon, Ballygar and Athlone.
The top four teams go forward to represent the region in the National final which will be held in TCD in the next couple of weeks.