Irish teens Ciara Judge, Émer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow have been named the Grand Prize Winners and the 15-16 age category winners of the fourth annual Google Science Fair.
The trio, who are Fifth Year students at Kinsale Community School in Co Cork, became interested in addressing the global food crisis after learning about the Horn of Africa famine in 2011. When a gardening project went awry, they discovered a naturally occurring bacteria in soil called Diazotroph. The girls determined that the bacteria could be used to speed up the the germination process of certain crops, like barley and oats, by 50 percent, potentially helping fulfill the rising demand for food worldwide.
From thousands of submissions from 90+ countries, a panel of esteemed judges selected 18 finalists representing nine countries—Australia, Canada, France, India, Russia, U.K., Ukraine and the U.S.—who spent yesterday impressing Googlers and local school students at Google’s Mountain View, California headquarters.
As the Grand Prize winners, Ciara, Émer and Sophie receive a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands provided by National Geographic, a $50,000 scholarship from Google, a personalized LEGO prize provided by LEGO Education and the chance to participate in astronaut training at the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in the Mojave desert.
