CPC young scientists check bags

How clean is your school bag? This was the question posed by a group of young scientists at Cross and Passion College just last week.



Their project was one of over 1,000 which were on display at the annual Young Scientist Exhibition in the RDS in Dublin and the Cross and Passion team finished in an impressive third place in their category.

The second year students surveyed their fellow students to see how clean they thought their school bags were. Then they set about taking swabs from several bags and growing whatever microorganisms they found.

The results showed that the bags did indeed harbour a large number of bacteria which in turn could be passed on to others or could contaminate food. Interestingly, school bags belonging to older students had greater quantities of bacteria than those of the first years. The investigation also showed that bags belonging to senior girls had more bacteria than those of the boys.

The project was on display in the RDS from Wednesday last until Saturday. The students involved were Dylan Kavanagh, Rachel Fisher and Emily Boland and they carried out their project under the guidance of their science teacher Caitriona O’Donnell.

Noel Clare.