Congratulations from all the staff and students to St. Mary’s Academy CBS Carlow Teacher Mr. Clowry, a Co-Founder of Young Scientists Tanzania. Who was recently presented with the Inaugural Founders Award 2018 by Dr. Tony Scott at the BT Young Scientist Awards in recognition of his contribution and work in transferring Young Scientist to Tanzania and Kenya.
Mr Clowry who teaches Science, Biology & Development Education in St. Mary’s Academy CBS Carlow was the first ever recipient of the Founder’s Award at the BTYSE in the RDS recently.
Tanzania was the first country in Africa to use the Young Scientist Model for Development by combining it with a science outreach programme. Moving the Young Scientist model to Africa in 2011 was the brainchild of Mr Clowry. In recent years Mr Clowry has also been assisting Dr. Vincent O’Neill, Irish Ambassador in Kenya to launch the project there. This work was praised by President Higgins in his speech at this year’s event.
Between 2008 and 2011, Mr Clowry worked with 40 researchers from East Africa in Maynooth University as Education Officer with the Combat Diseases of Poverty Consortium. As part of the science outreach programme the East African researchers visited schools all across Ireland to mentor students working on projects being undertaking for the Young Scientist Exhibition.
The African researchers could not believe the level of research being undertaken in Irish schools. They asked Mr Clowry to explore if this idea could be transferred to their countries. Having gotten permission from Dr. Tony Scott to use the Irish model, he worked extremely hard between May 2008 and 2011 to put all the aspects of launching the project in Tanzania.
YST was eventually launched in November 2011. Since it’s launch it has grown into a National Competition in Tanzania in just six years. “Tanzania was selected as the country to launch the pilot, not because it was easy but because it has the least developed scientific infrastructure in east Africa,' Mr Clowry explains.
“The exhibition has really captured the imagination of everyone involved in education and development in Tanzania. Students from every region in Tanzania now participate in the competition. Some students spend two days travelling to the event and another two days travelling back home afterwards. It is now being looked at by several other developing countries.”