St Vincent’s girls star at Young Economists event at Croker

St Vincent’s Secondary School enjoyed some considerable success at the recent Young Economist of the Year competition at Croke Park. 

All six projects entered into the event have progressed to the next round, part of 106 projects in all that have qualified from an initial 500 that entered. 

The Junior Cycle Business Studies students from 2 Heaney prepared for the project and attended the event under the guidance and tutelage  of their teacher James Doyle. 

They produced projects on a range of different economics topics for the competition, all using a digital technology to compile and submit the project.  

Considering this was St Vincent's first foray into the competition, seeing all six entries qualify for the finals is a remarkable achievement. “We are delighted to say that all of our entries achieved at least a Silver standard award, an amazing achievement,” Mr Doyle said. 

“Further to that, one of our entries was awarded second place in the overall Junior Category - an absolutely fantastic achievement for the students, especially considering it was their first time entering. 

“The winning group was Sadhbh Lynch, Ella Gamble, Mary McArdle and Robyn Griffith. Their project was ‘Should Excise Duties be put on Vapes/e-cigarettes’.

“The girls worked really hard on their respective projects and thoroughly enjoyed their day in Croke Park, in particular getting to see the variety of projects on display.”

The six St Vincent's Secondary School projects and groups were:

- Is cryptocurrency the future of money? (Silver) by Aeyla Orr, Caoimhe Cunningham, Sarah McDonnell and Carole Ann Logue

- Should excise duties be put on e-cigarettes? (Gold) by Ella Gamble, Sadhbh Lynch, Mary McArdle and Robyn Griffith

- Sugar tax - will it work? (Silver) by Eimear Fee and Sophie Woulfe

- The economics of an independent Catalonia (Silver) by Zara O’Shea and Isabel Holmes

- Brexit - What is it? (Silver) by Ciara Byrne, Laoise McCoy, Aoise Walsh, AoibheannCarolan and Enya Kampes

- The business point of view on Brexit (Silver) by Amberlie Collins

The winning team produced a very informative nine-slide presentation discussing cigarettes, vaping, e-cigarattes and excise duty. 
The students chose the project because they wanted to see if excise duties would discourage young teens from vaping. They decided to use cigarettes as a comparison to e-cigarettes because teens think vape ‘isn’t bad for you’. The team  surveyed 100 students to see the results for their project.