Mayo School set to exhibit at the Young Scientist exhibition this Friday

This Friday, one Mayo school will exhibit at the Young Scientist exhibition that takes place in the RDS, Dublin. Holy Trinity National School in Westport is one of 60 schools that will take part in the event. 

The fifth and sixth class pupils of the school have created a project called ‘Sunflower Power’ which saw them learn through theory and practice.

Back in May 2025, the students planted sunflower seeds in the classroom while using biodegradable pots and a coconut fibre substrate. 

Within a week to ten days, the majority of seeds germinated while some took longer and some didn’t germinate at all. The Holy Trinity school propagated the young plants on a sunny windowsill, watering them regularly, before transferring them to the street garden when they were about 30cm tall. Through the summer months these grew to the height of the children themselves and when the students returned to school in September they observed that the sunflowers were a very popular plant for pollinators, particularly bees.

The students learned all about pollination and also about Vincent Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings while the students drew and painted works themselves.

The students hope that this next generation of seed will produce new flowers and that next year the crop might be large enough to make sunflower oil from the harvest.

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