STEAM Showcase highlights the best and brightest at Portlaoise College

PORTLAOISE College was abuzz with excitement on 26 March as it played host to the annual Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) Showcase.

Organised by the Laois & Offaly Education and Training Board (LOETB), the STEAM Showcase is an annual event that convenes students from across all nine Laois and Offaly ETB schools to demonstrate what they have developed as part of the LOETB STEAM programme.

Students busied themselves in the school’s PE hall with robots, LEGO League, coding challenges, VR tours, Minecraft builds and podcasting.

Terence O'Brien, the digital technology coordinator for Laois-Offaly ETB, sees the programme as an opportunity to reinvest in the Midlands: “The problem is [students] go off to college with every intention of coming back someday, but they don't.

“They go to Dublin, they go to Limerick, they go to Cork, and they go abroad, and even though their heart might be in Laois or Offaly, for economic reasons, they don't come back.” Terence says the talent drain from the Midlands “strips our community of really capable people.” Part of the aim of the LOETB STEAM programme, he says, is to provide training and equipment to young people to develop skills to stay and help transform the region.

He cites a project winner from Portlaoise College who, two years ago, “rebuilt the whole town of Portlaoise in Minecraft, but as a sustainable, accessible version.” “We had TDs and councillors coming to the showcase seeing what young people want Portlaoise to look like in 20 or 30 years”, he says.

Another element of the programme is to facilitate the new ‘Just Transition’ - the move to a stable and low-carbon economy - by replacing the jobs lost in the peat industry with next generation employment.

Midlands Ireland, a collaboration between Laois, Offaly, Westmeath and Longford, is a European Union-funded Just Transition project. A grant was awarded to each county to develop skills and plug gaps left by the elimination of peat production and reliance on fossil fuels.

Money was reinvested in key areas, allowing councils to purchase equipment for second level STEAM outreach and engagement.

Seanie Morris is the STEM engagement officer for Laois County Council. Part of his role is to foster programmes in collaboration with the teachers, which he hopes will “create a broad talent pool in the Midlands to grow … the skills of the 21st century, and reinvest back in.” Seanie notes that the programme fosters neurodiverse inclusion and is “unleashing huge potential in a lot of younger kids who wouldn't have the chance to be on a sports team.” He says that, for some small schools, it’s giving them “a different kind of an all-Ireland target”.

Prizes worth €10,000 were given out on the day, sponsored by Laois County Council, Offaly County Council and Offaly-based IT company NIS.

Some prizes were presented to projects students had been working on since last September during their lunch breaks, after school, or in special STEAM clubs.

In Minecraft, for example, students were tasked with working on sustainability targets for 2030. In podcasting, they were challenged to tell stories rooted in their communities. Lego League asked participants to build a robot and code it.

Prizes were also awarded for live competitions, in which challenge briefs were given to students on the day.

The overall winner for LOETB STEAM Programme School of the Year was CNC Kilcormac. The school won a trophy and a €2000 voucher for STEAM equipment.

Portlaoise College won the VEX Robotics Judge’s Award, while Dunamase College won the Design award. Clonaslee College came joint runners-up with Banagher College in the Podcasting competition. Dunamase College also shared the runner-up position with Tullamore College in the First LEGO League competition.

Winning teams in each of the four competition strands won €1000 worth of tech equipment for their STEAM Clubs, as well as €500 All-4-One vouchers for the students to share.

St. Fergal’s Rathdowney won the Minecraft Education Design competition, run in partnership with Microsoft Ireland, ensuring the entire team won a trip to a coding and gaming day at Microsoft Dream Space in Dublin.

In attendance at the event was Brian Stanley, Independent TD for Laois, who said the STEAM programme “gives teenagers the opportunity to excel in these subjects”.

He continues: “One thing that we've learned about education is that it's not a ‘one fits all’ situation, and this does provide another avenue for teenagers to develop their skills.” Says Terence O’Brien: “It's brilliant for [students] to find their passion, to find their things, to represent their schools and then hopefully get back to their communities.

“Maybe they will be the Collison brothers of Laois or Offaly. Maybe they'll set up a podcast studio or a film studio. That's the idea.”