A STUDENT from St Brendan’s College, Killarney, Co Kerry, has won the annual RDS McWilliams Young Science Writers’ Competition. Aaron Elbel (14) took the top prize and also a category award in his fourth entry in the competition.
Aaron won praise from the judges with a nicely written and carefully researched essay, When Botanists Go Bad. He received a laptop computer, sponsored by the Marine Institute, and for the fourth year running, won a category award. This year it was a digital camera.
Minister of State for Science, Technology and Innovation Dr Jimmy Devins presented the awards yesterday at the Royal Dublin Society in Ballsbridge. He praised the students for merging “literary talents and scientific skills” in the competition, which has run for 17 years.
The competition reflects one of the RDS’s “foundation activities” in advancing agriculture, arts, industry and science.
This year, it was renamed in honour of former Irish Times columnist Brendan McWilliams, who, for almost 20 years, wrote the newspaper’s daily Weather Eye column.
Brendan was inducted as an honorary life member of the RDS in 1999. He passed away in late 2007.