Green Maths and Science Week Update

We had a fantastic week here enjoying lots of arranged activities such as Science workshops and experiment demonstrations, Wildlife encounters, Green Puppet shows and much much more. Here are a collection of photos that were taken throughout the week by pupils and teachers. Thanks to all that helped organise this week.

The children in Mrs McGill's Senior Infant class had Mr. Austin from Seagate in their class on Tuesday 16th November. He discussed the work that they do in Seagate and showed the children what a hard drive looks like.

The children carried outa science experiment on things that float or sink. The childrenhad to cut out pictures and group them into two sets-those that float and those that sink. After making the two groups they had to place the items in the water to check if they were right or wrong.

Mr. Autin played a number of games with the children that they really enjoyed. He discussed the importance of numbers and where we can find numbers.

It was a very interesting and fun filled morning and the children really enjoyed having Mr.Austin share his knowledge with them.

By Mrs Mc Gill's Class

SCIENCE/MATHS AND GREEN WEEK

By Hannah Rose Burke and Caitlin Kelly McGinty

Last week was science, Maths and Green week in our school. On Tuesday 15th of November we celebrated the Feast of St.Albert the Great, patron saint of scientists. We were one of the lucky classes that got a special visitor, Ben Austen.

Ben works as a mechanical engineer in Seagate, Derry and he is also Hannah Austen's Dad. When he came in he delivered an interesting presentation about his work. Seagate makes hard drives to store things like music, pictures and videos on computers. He even showed us a hard drive!

Then we performed an experiment investigating air pressure. We got a straw and sealable bag. We put half of the straw into the side of the bag, sealed it up and made sure there was no air in it. We had to inflate the bag like a balloon using the straws. Next we placed a few books on top of the bag. Finally we blew into the straws again as hard as we could to see if we could lift the books. It worked! The books started to lift!

Afterwards we did a different experiment. We got two syringes and put one on each end of a tube. When you pushed in one syringe the other syringe pushed out! We then got a piece of tubing and two syringes. One group broke off a top of a pencil. We put the top of the pencil into the tubing and we were able to move the lead using air pressure created by the syringes.

Last of all we did a quiz about what we learnt and the prize was a night off HOMEWORK!!! Everyone wanted to win! But then Ben gave us all a night off homework! What a brilliant week! Thank you Ben for visiting us. By Hannah Rose Burke and Caitlin Kelly McGinty

"We went down to our school P.E. hall to learn about electricity and how climate change works. It was lots of fun! We did a lot of experiments. We did an experiment with a tub filled with a litttle bit of water then we dropped in a vitamin C tablet, shook it then flipped it upside down. We waited a few seconds and it exploded. We did that a couple of times. One of them even popped and hit the roof!

Three students got three potatoes. They had LED lights. They stuck two pieces of metal into the potato. They were called copper and zinc. The speaker used wires to make a circuit. When she joined them altogether the LED light lit up. The reason it lit up was because of the energy in the three potatoes. Our teacher Mrs McNulty then took some photos. We came back to class. We all had a great time learning.

Thank you. By Áine Duffy 5th Class

Riverwatch

Both third Classes had a very interesting lesson with Michael from Riverwatch. We got to investigate insects that live in our local rivers using microscopes. We also got to meet Shelley the Lobster. By Mrs Cannon's 3rd Class