FOR a second year, St Joseph’s Secondary School in Rush took the top overall prize in the junior category at the PExpo held in DCU on Wednesday, March 29.
Making up the research team which investigated ‘The effect of different types of feedback on performance’ were Eabha McBride, Layla Nolan, Leah Mullen and Stephanie Cherish Dan.
Mullen and Dan were members of the winning junior team at PExpo ’22.
The project also took the top prize in the psychology category.
It was a good day for St Joseph’s, with Ava O’Connor, Saoirse Cashell and Emma McKeown winning the Components of Fitness junior category for their project comparing the fine motor skills of GAA footballers and hurling or camogie players.
Tallaght CS, Peer Judging award, Keren Agbassan, Kathy Akoguale and Leah Halpin
The stick and ball players came out on top for reaction times, dexterity and hand-eye co-ordination.
A topical project called ‘Code Red – Optimising Training and Nutrition During your Period’ from Julia Maselsky and Aoife Burke, Sutton Park took the Women in Sport award as well as winning in the senior Well-Being category,
For St Paul’s Raheny, an examination of kinesiological stretching undertaken by Eabha McBride, Layla Nolan, Leah Mullen and Stephanie Cherish Dan took the senior award in the Components of Fitness category.
For the project, static stretching was compared to yoga and to kinesiological stretching which targets specific muscles sometimes using a resistance band.
A fourth group did no stretching at all.
Kinesiological stretching proved most effective.
Loreto Balbriggan – Isabelle Coogan, Hilary Gargan and Jessica Coogan with Olympic Bronze Medal rower Aifric Keogh, a Dare to Believe Ambassador. Sportsfile/Dare to believe
Another Dublin school in winning form was Tallaght Community School with a project on sickle cell disease taking the Peer Judging award – the award given by fellow students.
More than two-thirds of those suffering from sickle cell disease – a debilitating blood disorder – are under 18, Keren Agbassan, Kathy Akoguale and Leah Halpin point out.
The trio even produced an information leaflet on the condition for teachers.
Spending four months looking into alleged performance ‘improvers’ were Callum Maloney, Dylan Bradley, Michael Gnutek, Eoghan Dunne and Darragh O’Neill from Clonkeen College in Deansgrange, Co Dublin, winners of the senior Components of Fitness category.
After taking creatine, one member of the group found a dramatic increase in his strength.
However, other factors that might have contributed to his improvement could not be discounted.
The conclusion was that creatine did not have much overall effect.
The group also looked at caffeine, pointing out that awareness of the ingredients in popular ‘energy’ drinks.
Winner the junior Power of Sport category for a project comparing students physical activity levels were Fabian Surma and Viktor Iskra, from Trinity Comprehensive Ballymun.
Isabelle Coogan, Hilary Gargan and Jessica Coogan from Loreto Balbriggan looked into how sports can transform your mind, body and social life.
St Paul’s Raheny – Components of Fitness senior winners.
Their project called ‘Beyond the Scoreboard’, caught the eye of Olympic rower Aifric Keogh one of the Dare to Believe Olympic ambassadors attending PExpo ’23.
PExpo, developed in association with the Physical Education Association of Ireland, was first held in 2015 and is now in its ninth year.
Its aim is to promote a better understanding of PE, sport, fitness and health among second level school students.
For the exhibition, based loosely on the Young Scientists format, students are invited to submit projects under one of nine headings, including the power of sport, technology in sport, well-being, components of fitness, nutrition, games development, psychology, and two categories linked to the physical education curriculum for the Leaving Certificate.
As well as the Physical Education Association of Ireland and ‘Dare to Believe’ other supporters of PExpo ’23 include Sport Ireland, Dublin City Sport and Wellbeing, South Dublin County Sport Partnership and DCU Sport.