Junior Infants were very excited about Science Week. This week, along with STEM for Fun we got to explore magnets and how they work. Early in the week we explored magnetism. We talked about what magnets are and watched a short video on magnetism. We then investigated things that were magnetic by testing our magnets out around the school and yard outside. During Aistear we got to explore magnets and magnetic objects more. We used magnets to test items that might be magnetic and categorise items that were magnetic and non magnetic. Finally at the end of the week we looked at a group...
15 Nov
We conducted three experiments in 5th class for Science Week 2021. Experiment 1: To investigate the influence of different liquids on a hard boiled egg shell that will act as tooth enamel. We placed four hard boiled eggs into bowls with either milk, apple juice, vinegar and coca-cola. We left the eggs to sit in the liquid for the duration of the week before removing them. We were surprised that the apple juice egg looked worse than the coca-cola egg! The egg that was in the vinegar was shriveled up and wrinkly! Experiment 2: We investigated the growth of bacteria on bread....
14 Nov
STEM activity 1: We started of Science week by seeing if there was any link between our favorite colour and our favorite taste. We began by making a pictogram using gummy bears to show the votes of the classes favorite colours. Take a look: After this, we tasted some fresh jellies and decided on which one was our favorite to taste. We talked about different ways we could make this graph and decided that a block graph was the quickest. Here are our results: We were surprised that there was no link between our taste and favorite color as we had predicted there...
18 Nov
This month in 4th Class we are learning about the topic of ‘Transport’. In celebration of Science Week, we started off the week using a K’nex STEM challenge to create a hot air balloon model! We continued the week with another STEM activity and asked the question – ‘How do parachutes work?’ Parachutes need to be able to catch air inside them so we spent some time thinking of what materials we could use for our parachutes. Then we spent time designing our parachutes. Each group received the same amount of materials and time to complete the activity. We...
16 Nov
5th Class had great fun investigating, exploring and creating for Science Week 2020. At the beginning of the week we used the Lego WeDo kits to create satellites, robots and windmills. We first had to create our Lego model. We then used Bluetooth to connect our creations to tablets. From there we could program our Lego creations. We could make them move, spin, change colour and make noises. We have been learning all about Space. One child in the class cashed in their Dojo Points to teach the class a lesson. He chose to teach us about rockets and how they launch. He recorded a video...
16 Nov
We have just finished another exciting Science Week in St. Peter’s. Junior Infants loved getting to grips with this week’s STEM lessons. Early in the week we explored magnetism. We talked about what magnets are and watched a short video on magnetism. We then investigated things that were magnetic by testing our magnets out around the classroom and school. Finally we came back and tried to predict which items from a group were magnetic and which were not and tested these out. Later in the week we ventured into early programming skills. In small groups we got to play with Beebots. We...
16 Nov
We had a great week celebrating Science Week in Ms. Kane’s class, one of our favourite celebrations of the year! We love taking part in STEM activities on a regular basis and were excited to try lots of new ideas this week. We listened to Professor Luke O’ Neill talking about coronavirus, watched David Attenborough’s new documentary ‘A Life on Our Planet’ and used Lego WeDo! to design our visions for the future. We learned lots about coronavirus by listening to Professor Luke O’ Neill answering questions on RTÉ Junior. Professor O’ Neill is a scientist...
14 Nov
We kicked off Science week in 2nd class by diving into the theme of ‘Space and Planets’! We learned all about the different planets, the ISS and rockets. STEAM: We decided to get creative and make our very own planets! We researched planets, painted them, gave them names and constructed the posters! We wrote and presented to the class what it would be like to live on these planets! STEM Challenge: Launching an Asteroid Our first challenge was to create a catapult which would allow us to launch our “asteroids”. We had a competition to see whose asteroid travelled the...
13 Nov
We were learning all about pets in 1st class so we decided to make homes for some of the pets we had discussed in class. Each group made a pet rock and we made a whole class brainstorm on what our pet rocks would need in their homes to survive. Take a look at our brainstorm: After we discussed our pets needs, we started to plan for our homes, making sure we included the essentials! Have a look at some of our plans. We finally got started on our designing and creating part of science week. Take a look at how our finishing products turned out… would you be happy for your...
19 Nov
In celebration of Science Week 2019 we decided to carry out another STEM activity! We love designing and making and wasted no time in deciding what STEM activity to try this time. We have been learning about World War 2 this month and last week we watched some footage of the D – Day parachute landings in Normandy in 1944. We wanted to learn some more about how the parachutes that the soldiers used worked and what they were made from. We looked at various video clips and found out that the parachutes were often made from silk and nylon. We were surprised as we thought silk was a soft material...
