The maiden edition of the brain battle quiz organised by the Catholic Education Directorate and Cocktail Media ended with a science innovative practical competition for Catholic Junior High Schools (JHS) across the nation at the Christ the King Parish in Accra on March 15, 2020.
The St. Anthony of Padua JHS, from the Western Region; St. Mary JHS from Brong-Ahafo and Ancilla JHS from Upper West qualified to the grand finale after exhibiting their technological inventions.
Young pupils from St. Anthony of Padua School who won the Hot Lab competition with 34 points presented technological equipment that uses urine to generate power. From the judge’s perspective, it was useful on the basis of the raw material and how it will help keep our environment clean whiles supplying cheap energy.
St. Mary JHS was second with 27.5 points after it had presented an air conditioner and a coin counting machine as a project. The project was evaluated on the usefulness in the Ghanaian economy in terms of household use and use in financial institutions. The interesting thing about the second Project is that coin-counting machines and air-conditioning are devices used but always imported.
Ancilla JHS took the third position with 24 points after presenting a Biogas, a project which is ubiquitous and very popular in Ghana but still unique as long as it is being engineered by these children at the basic level” say the judges.
St. Anthony of Padua received the ultimate prize for the project called the Albert Owusu-Boateng National Scientists Award, which consisted of a Glass Plaque and a cash amount of GHȼ500.00. The award was sponsored by one medical doctor, Dr. Maria Papaionoo of German Nationality to promote science. In addition, they also received books from Adwinsa Publications.
The first runner up, St. Mary JHS was awarded three Science Sets consisting of a science kit for basic science electronics and robotics, plus books from Adwinsa Publications while the third, Ancilla JHS, had two Science Sets and books from Adwinsa Publications.
“The quiz itself had science practical segment called “THE HOT LAB” as part of round one…..we believe Ghana and Africa as a whole has been behind in practical science and technological advancements which we believe if we invest some resources in that area to challenge our kids on such competitive platforms, they will start taking interest early in life and develop skills that will make them problem-solvers for the nation and the continent, said Mr. Samuel Owusu Boateng, CEO of Cocktail Media, organisers of the competition.
He said with the Hot Lab Quiz, the projects were judged based on four major criteria, noting that creativity was extensively looked at which focused on the originality of the concept and how independent the innovation was.
The second, he said was presentation, how well the project was set up at the venue and how orderly the details were arranged to help anyone to logically follow its processes sequentially to be able to make sense of the entire project and be able to appreciate its true value without much effort.
He noted that written communication which is the content of the project board and clarity of expression of the project details as backup information were also considered as the student’s explanation of their project to the judges without interjections or support by their teachers as well as showing enough understanding and evidence of working on the project themselves were also considered.
Mr. Owusu Boateng enumerated other criteria as relevance of the project to Ghana, saying that “the usefulness in renewable energy or application in everyday life; they scored equal points in that criteria, the difference was made in the areas indicated.”
The next edition for the 2020/2021 academic year is expected to commence with a launch in either May or June and will take off in August during the long vacation, to be climaxed in 2021.
As the Guest Speaker at the event, Ing. Dr. Ken Ashigbey the Chief Executive Officer of (CEO) of Ghana Chamber of Telecommunication, commended the finalists making their schools proud and thanked their teachers for moulding them in the area of Science and technology.
Amazed with the technological prowess of the young pupils, he said the world required skills and innovations and was happy young people through Catholic education and the brain battle quiz have explored by bringing their creativity, innovations and initiatives of Science, Maths and Technology to bare.
He appealed to Ghanaian businesses and individuals to use their resources to support the young ones build technology for the advancement of the nation.
