{"id":2719,"date":"2019-01-17T15:06:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T15:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moatecs.com\/?p=2719"},"modified":"2019-01-17T15:06:02","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T15:06:02","slug":"moate-students-awarded-at-scifest-national-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moatecs.com\/moate-students-awarded-at-scifest-national-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Moate Students Awarded at SciFest National Final"},"content":{"rendered":"
Moate Students Awarded at SciFest National Final<\/strong><\/p>\n Following their success at the Regional Final of SciFest in Athlone Institute of Technology, Emma Kelly and Brian Conlon were among 37 projects selected to complete in the SciFest National Final in the Marino Conference Centre in Dublin on the 9th<\/sup> of November.<\/p>\n Brian and Emma\u2019s project \u2018Ireland\u2019s Burning Problem\u2019<\/em><\/strong> initially studied the ecological impact of gorse fires on peatland habitats and the link between the change in peat physical properties and plant composition of bog lands. The students carried out a number of surveys on three sites divided into burnt and unburnt plots. Their findings concluded that the extreme heat of the fires had a drastic effect on the properties of the peat and that each plant species had a specific response to this change. In particular the fires negatively impacted the population of the bog-building sphagnum species across all three bogs.<\/p>\n