Sligo school's commitment to STEM strikes national gold
This national award, presented by Research Ireland and supported by the Department of Further and Higher Education, celebrates the outstanding efforts of 397 schools across Ireland in promoting hands-on, curiosity-led STEM learning. The Gold Award is presented to schools that have integrated STEM into at least half of their classes.
Throughout the year, pupils have explored biodiversity, conducted design-and-make challenges, tackled real-world problems, and engaged in creative STEM projects that brought learning to life.
Teacher Ms. McIntyre lead the coordination of the initiative with the help of other staff and the enthusiastic pupils whose hard work made this possible.
'This achievement reflects our school's growing culture of innovation and learning, and we are delighted to be part of a national effort to inspire the next generation of problem-solvers and innovators,' said a spokesperson.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Post
3 days ago
- Irish Post
€34m HealthTech hub launches in Ireland
A NEW €34m research hub focused on chronic disease management has been launched in Ireland's Northern and Western regions. University of Galway is leading the hub in partnership with Atlantic Technological University and RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. The Accelerating Research to Commercialisation (ARC) Hub for HealthTech aims to fast-track healthcare research into real-world solutions. Funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the hub will focus on developing smart implants, advanced wearables, novel sensors, and AI-driven models to improve chronic disease detection, monitoring, and treatment. The project aligns with Ireland's National Smart Specialisation Strategy, promoting regional growth through targeted innovation. 'The ARC Hub for HealthTech will transform regional innovation and accelerate the delivery of healthcare solutions to those who need them most,' said Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, James Lawless TD. In addition to research, the hub will support scientists and engineers in commercialising their work - offering training in entrepreneurship, regulatory requirements, and market access. 'This initiative unlocks significant long-term opportunities for the region's healthcare, research, and enterprise communities,' said Celine Fitzgerald, interim CEO of Research Ireland. The HealthTech hub is the third in Research Ireland's ARC programme, following earlier launches in therapeutics (Trinity College Dublin) and ICT (TU Dublin). Together, these hubs are creating a national framework to bridge academic research and commercial application.
Irish Independent
19-06-2025
- Irish Independent
Sligo school's commitment to STEM strikes national gold
This national award, presented by Research Ireland and supported by the Department of Further and Higher Education, celebrates the outstanding efforts of 397 schools across Ireland in promoting hands-on, curiosity-led STEM learning. The Gold Award is presented to schools that have integrated STEM into at least half of their classes. Throughout the year, pupils have explored biodiversity, conducted design-and-make challenges, tackled real-world problems, and engaged in creative STEM projects that brought learning to life. Teacher Ms. McIntyre lead the coordination of the initiative with the help of other staff and the enthusiastic pupils whose hard work made this possible. 'This achievement reflects our school's growing culture of innovation and learning, and we are delighted to be part of a national effort to inspire the next generation of problem-solvers and innovators,' said a spokesperson.
Irish Times
10-06-2025
- Irish Times
Impact of AI on Ireland's energy demands ‘not going to be as steep' as feared
The impact of the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) on Ireland's energy demands is 'not going to be as steep as many people believe', Research Ireland has told an Oireachtas committee. Research Ireland, which was established last year by an amalgamation of Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council, was before the newly formed Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence on Tuesday. The International Energy Agency expects data centres to consume close to a third of total electricity in Ireland by 2026. They used about 22 per cent of all metered electricity here in 2024, according to Central Statistics Office data. The current boom in AI is rapidly fuelling increased need for data centre capacity, as AI relies on vast consumption of data, and, by extension, energy. A ChatGPT query is said to consume 10 times more electricity than a Google search. READ MORE [ Data centres accounted for more than fifth of Ireland's electricity usage last year Opens in new window ] Asked about the need for more data centres and the impact of this on resources, Ciarán Seoighe, deputy chief executive of Research Ireland, said a price 'will have to be paid', but that evidence is emerging it may not be 'as steep' as current projections suggest. 'The projections are based on a straight line increase or even a curve up increase in the energy demands, but already we are seeing in the research area examples where that is not only deflected down, but hopefully even pivoted down,' he said. 'I'm not going to say this is a problem that is going to disappear, but I expect it to be less demanding than what the current projections would be. It is still a huge consumption of resources, not just of electricity. 'It's not going to go away. We are going to have to pay for this in some sense, but I don't think the penalty is going to be as steep as many people believe.' Separately, Mr Seoighe said he had concerns over the 'dominance of Big Tech' and the resources multinational companies have to invest in AI, which could leave state actors playing catch-up. 'There was talk at one point of a CERN [the European Organisation for Nuclear Research] for AI, because, as a small state, we are not at that level where we can invest the many, many millions required to be able to do this level of research,' he said. 'But, if at a European level, we had a large scale centralised investment, of which we could be a part, then we have the scale and the power to do real research in the area, and stay ahead of the curve.' Research Ireland's Susan Leavy, who is also an assistant professor with the School of Information and Communication Studies at UCD, said the issue that 'keeps me awake at night' is the use of AI by 'pernicious actors' to influence political viewpoints and elections. 'You have that possibility for pernicious actors to interfere [and] generate loads of AI content, and it could be super personalised to sway people's beliefs, voting patterns, polarise people, and that undermines democracy,' she said. 'The AI-generated content on social media hasn't yet been shown to have had an effect in elections. However, what we do know is the political polarisation in society coincides with the proliferation of the recommender algorithms.'
