Mcc students investigating ecofriendly flower power

Staying back after school to work on a science project since February has paid off for two Mullingar Community College students, 17-year-old Aoife Woods and 16-year-old Amy Allard, who are destined for the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in January.

The two students who are already looking at careers in science have developed a chemical-free flower feed, using natural and locally grown peat moss, and have proven that it improves the lifespan of cut flowers.

“Using lilies, we found that all the trial runs are looking really positive so far; they are sitting in a normal vase of water – one has the flower food you can buy in shops and the other has the peat moss sitting in the bottom of it,” says Amy, who hopes to do forensic science in the future.

“We’re trying to find an organic alternative to commercial flower foods,” explains Aoife, who wants to study radiography following secondary school.

“We used peat moss instead of the little packets of food that you get when you buy flowers to see if it would last longer, and we discovered that it did.

“We had a load of different ideas for the science project. We started planning it around February or March, but this seemed the one to be the most suitable to get an experiment from,” Aoife continues.

“We’ve been interested in science since first year, so we’re extremely excited about the BT Young Scientist of the Year exhibition – we nearly can’t believe that we got through,” adds Amy.

The BT Young Scientist and Technology exhibition takes place in the RDS from January 8-10, when Aoife and Amy’s project will join roughly 550 others from across Ireland, which will be seen by as many as 40,000 people over the three-day exhibition.

Their teacher, Leanne Moore, is more than excited for her two young protégés.

“There are no chemicals involved, people are more conscious now of what they’re being exposed to, not having chemicals in the home if they’ve got young kids,” says Ms Moore.

“So this is a case of using a local peat moss that’s found in the bogs in the area. It mimics all the natural abilities of the flower food, it’s naturally anti-microbial, so you don’t get bacteria and fungus growing in it. It can hold 10 times its weight in water, so the flowers don’t use as much water, so it can last longer,” says adds.

Now Aoife and Amy will set about preparing their display for a panel of judges who will assess their project and its results in the senior biology category next January.