Short film by Foróige Athlone members wins national award
Participants who took part in My Life Online workshops facilitated by Midlands Science and supported by the Rethink Ireland TikTok Digital Future Fund earlier this year have been announced as winners in the 2025 Reel LIFE SCIENCE Awards, which were presented at the University of Galway today.
In these workshops participants from Foróige Athlone worked with science communicator Dr Dan Nickström and Apple Tart Productions and explored script writing, stop motion animation, filming and a range of other topics.
One output of this work was a short social media video exploring the age old question – 'Why is the sky blue? 'The scattering of light which creates the colour blue was discovered by Irish scientist John Tyndall. Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered more than the other colours because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.
Elaine Fox, head of TikTok Ireland commented: “At TikTok, we believe in the power of creativity and digital skills to unlock opportunity and confidence in young people. The success of the Foróige Athlone participants in the ReelLIFE SCIENCE Awards is a brilliant example of what the TikTok Digital Future Fund is all about—empowering marginalised youth to tell stories, explore big ideas, and thrive in a digital world. We’re proud to support initiatives like My Life Online that help young people in Ireland turn curiosity into creativity.”
Jackie Gorman of Midlands Science said: “We’ve had a wide range of young people from schools and groups across the midlands take part in the My Life Online workshops and it’s fantastic to see the work which has been done. It’s particularly great to see the work done by young people from Foróige Athlone in exploring one of science’s great questions, why is the sky blue ? This question was answered by Irish scientist John Tyndall in 1859, a long time ago and today our workshop participants have brought that explanation to life online.”
The ReelLIFE SCIENCE programme challenges young people in schools and youth groups across the island of Ireland to engage with science and technology while developing their communication and digital skills, by producing short educational videos for the public. It is based in the University of Galway and is supported by Research Ireland, Foróige and a number of other partners.
Anne Marie Regan of Foróige said:“ Foróige has a firm commitment to engaging young people with disciplines such as STEM and digital media, preparing them for the world we live in today. The opportunity for some of our young people to take part in workshops exploring such topics with Midlands Science was really welcome this year. It’s fantastic to see our participants doing so well as a result in this renowned science communications event, we can’t wait to see what comes next!”
Midlands Science provides a range of free science outreach activities in the midlands all year around to a range of age groups, from pre-schoolers to secondary school level and the general public. The My Life Online project is funded by the Rethink Ireland TikTok Digital Future Fund, a fund which was created to support non-profit organisations that build digital and/ or creative skills to enhance the lives of young people across Ireland.