AS prize winners and their teachers return today to their schools, the work for the 1997 Young Scientists' Exhibition begins for the competition's administrator, Ms Jackie Mahon.
Indeed, it could be said to have begun on Saturday, during a meeting between judges and teachers at which the judges explained the basis of their decisions.
One of the points they made, according to Ms Mahon, was the essential experimental basis of science, and the need for rigorous experimentation in all disciplines, including the behavioural sciences.
They also reassured teachers from far flung schools that access to university libraries and sophisticated technology was not necessary. Good experimental methods don't require technology," Ms Mahon said. The judges were impressed with the work of one pupil who made his own equipment from materials bought in the local electrical shop.
The judges were impressed with the standards of the entries this year, she said. They had remarked that the reports from the leading entries would have been acceptable from postgraduate students.
Indeed, the winning entry had broken new ground in improving the standard grid used by the British Beekeepers Association for monitoring the activity of bees, and in identifying three hitherto unknown sub groups of the brown bee.
But it is not only the winning entries which are honoured. Each year the schools which score the highest number of points, based on the number of different prizes and commendations its pupils win, are also recognised. This year that school was St Louis's Girls Secondary School in Dundalk, which gathered 20 points.
Its science teacher Ms Siobhan Greer, supervised 14 entries from 27 pupils, winning first prize in the individual junior behavioural science category, third prize in individual senior biology, six highly commended and a prize for display.
"This means more to me than winning the Young Scientist of the Year," she said. Even those of her pupils who had not won prizes had contributed, she said.
She was particularly happy that the first prize in the junior behavioural science category and the prize for display had gone to her daughter Doireann (12), the youngest competitor.
Doireann's project had investigated how pupils adjust to the transition from primary to secondary school, she found that girls generally adjusted better than boys, with 34 per cent of boys and 21 per cent of girls wishing they were back in primary school. Getting involved in school activities and making friends were major factors in adjusting, she found.
Ms Greer and her charges return to a heroes' welcome in Dundalk this week. She hopes that their success will reinforce the commitment to provide more laboratories for the school.
Only one of the schools which won one of the four major prizes featured among those with the highest overall points This was Terenure College, Dublin, whose Donal O'Connell won the best individual project, and which came fourth with 15 points overall.