| Young Social Innovators |
The St Joseph’s College Young Social Innovators team project called “Rate Your Car – Save The Planet” won further accolades recently. The nationwide Young Social Innovators competition encourages people to make a contribution to their community. This project aims to make car owners more aware about their cars and the effects they have on the environment. The TY students involved were D Arshad, N Lacerna, K New and A Finnegan, along with their teacher, Dr Tom de Brit. The project was included in two recent events: The SciFest at the Institute of Technology, Tallaght, on 4 May, and the main YSI showcase event held at the RDS on May 9 and 10. At the SciFest in ITT Tallaght, teams from 71 schools displayed their science projects. The St Joseph’s team won ‘Best Communicators’ in the Technology category. A few days later, on May 9 and 10, the team were selected to attend the Young Social Innovators Showcase in the RDS. They won top prize in the ‘Making the World Greener’ category. The judges told them they were confident, had the best statistics, and had created a real buzz of interest around their display. |
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| What the ‘Rate Your Car’ project means:
The aim of this project is to make car owners more aware about their cars and the effects they have on the environment, hence the title ‘Rate your Car’. The students distributed stickers with their rating on them and encouraged car owners to stick them on their back windscreens. This way, other people would notice them and hopefully think about which car is best for the environment before choosing to buy a car/another car. They selected this idea because it included a bit of everything such as carbon footprints, using alternative sources of energy, pollution and communicating with other people in our community. The method was to survey car owners and rate their cars based on four exhaust emissions for greenhouse gas and other pollutants, car size to reflect the manufacturing footprint and weight, engine size, fuel(s) used and the number of seats. An average rating was calculated for each car surveyed and a “rate your car” sticker assigned. The project is ongoing, and the next phase is to study the social impact of these car windscreen stickers in the car owner community and general public. |
| The YSI team explain Rate Your Car to judges at the Showcase in the RDS, Dublin |
| The YSI Team at the SciFest, ITT Tallaght, with teacher Dr de Brit |
| What is YSI? Click here to find out more |