Inspirational AVS students have eight projects in BT Young Scientists final

STUDENTS: Jane Faulkner, Jayne Glenn and Amy McGroary 

CATEGORY: Intermediate Social and Behavioural Biological and Ecological PROJECT TITLE: The most effective method of reducing anxiety in secondary school students post Covid

APPROACH: Following our return to school after the second lockdown, we became more aware of the level of anxiety related issues among our school peers. A lot of our friends were anxious about coming back into a crowded school community and consequently really struggled academically. In a survey conducted online by the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union, the National Parents’ Council Post-Primary and the Institute of Guidance Counsellors three-quarters of respondents indicated the pandemic had an impact on their mental health. Almost half said the impact was mild (45%), with a significant proportion (23%) indicating there were moderate impacts on mental health. A smaller proportion (7%) reported a severe impact. Several studies show that exercise intervention results in superior anxiety outcomes compared to those of the control groups. Our school runs a programme of lunch time activities and we wish to investigate which school activities are most effective in reducing anxiety levels. We aim to approach students in each activity group to see if they are interested in taking part in the survey and hope to re-survey at least twice to see if the activities are impacting anxiety levels.