Cormac Harris and Alan O'Sullivan, fourth year students from Coláiste Choilm in Cork, have been named as the winners of the 56th BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition
Cormac Harris and Alan O'Sullivan, both 16, took the top prize for a 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".
The teenagers held workshops with 376 5-7 year olds from a range of school settings with a number of different tasks including: choosing between gender-specific and gender-neutral toys; drawing and naming an engineer, and; rating male and female competency at a number of gender-specific roles. "The project is particularly impressive in that Cormac and Alan also created very pertinent and useable resources for primary school teachers to combat gender stereotyping among young children," he added.They will also represent Ireland at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists, which takes place in Santander, Spain in September 2020.
The award for Individual winner went to Oscar Despard, aged 17, a fifth year student from Sandford Park in Dublin.