The John Hooper Statistical Poster Competition is one of Ireland’s most respected and prestigious schools’ competitions. The competition is named after the first Director of Statistics of the Irish Free State and has become hugely popular with both students and teachers alike. The competition provides an outstanding opportunity for students across the island of Ireland to showcase their data analytical and interpretation skills.
The John Hooper Statistical Poster Competition is a team competition and students must design a poster on any topic that they choose. Teams must comprise 2 or 3 members.
Students who have already worked on and entered a project in another science or statistical competition such as the BT Young Scientist Competition may also participate in CSO competitions subject to meeting the eligibility criteria.
This year, for the first time, students from Mary Immaculate Secondary School entered the competition. Four teams were entered under the guidance of John Sims. The students involved were Aisling Vaughan, Alana McKinnon, Ella Mooney, Eileen Keating, Áine Kelly, Ella Enright, Niamh Linnane and Noelle Byrne.
The poster (shown below) entered by Alana McKinnon and Aisling Vaughan entitled "Mobile phone coverage and the topography of North Clare" won first place in the competition. They will be presented with their medal in Dublin on 25th October 2023.
As a result of winning the John Hooper competition Aisling and Alana will now participate in the European Statistics Competition. This competition requires the team to create a 2-minute video on the topic of wellbeing. Alana and Aisling have produced a video entitled “Wellbeing in Ireland – Using Statistics to Tell the Story.” This project was submitted on the 10th of May 2023. We wish them the best of luck and are proud of them representing the school in a European competition.
We were also delighted to learn that the poster entered by Áine Kelly and Ella Enright entitled "How much plastic is washed up on our shores" had won second place in the competition.
What a result we got on entering the competition for the first time.