“The science of today is the technology of tomorrow”

The boys and girls in Múinteoir Aoife’s Classroom had super fun during Science Week November 8th-15th 2020″. During the week the children carried out lots of experiments, science themed crosswords and investigated some interesting scientists and scientific facts.

On Day one, the children made lava lamps using oil, water and food colouring.

On Day two, the children did the Volcano experiment with mentoes and Diet Coke outside of course!!

On Day three, the children watched and carried out a love webinar workshop based on ‘Discover Your Tap Water’ hosted by ‘Science Foundation of Ireland’ (SFI)

On Day four, the children had so much fun during the exciting Balloon Rocket experiment. This was the favourite experiment by the children and great fun was had.

A great week fulfilled Science Week was had. They are all super scientists in the making. Well done all especially our ‘Sciemtist of the Week’ Eva. So proud of you.

Science Week 2019-Middle Room

We had great fun throughout the week. The children were involved in various experiments as well as attending a show in Belmullet on Thursday. Throughout the week the children carried out the following experiments:

Make an Egg Float in Salt Water

Equipment:

An egg
Water
Salt
2 plastic glasses

Method:

Pour water into one glass
Drop an egg into it. What happens? The egg will sink.
Pour water into the other glass
Stir in lots of salt
Gently lower the egg into this glass. What happens this time? The egg will float

What’s happening?

Salt water is denser than ordinary tap water, therefore it is much easier for the egg to float in the salt water.

The children also investigated how static electricity on a balloon can pick up pieces of paper

Equipment:

Balloon

Small pieces of paper

Woolly jumper

Method:

Tear the paper into small pieces
Blow up a balloon
Rub the balloon on a woolly jumper for a few minutes
Place the balloon close to the small pieces of paper and watch carefully what happens….

What is happening?

When you bring the balloon near a little piece of paper, the negative balloon repels the electrons in the paper so part of the paper near the balloon is positive. Since positive and negative attract, the paper moves toward the balloon. The negatively charged balloon attracts the paper.

The children also made lava lamps.

Materials:

A clean plastic bottle
Vegetable Oil
Alka Seltzer tablets
Food Coloring

Instructions:

Fill the bottle up about 1/4th (1 quarter) with water.
Pour the vegetable oil in the bottle until is almost full.
The oil and water will begin to separate.
Add a few drops of food coloring. Watch as the color sinks through the oil.
Break your fizzy tablet in half and drop part of it into the bottle. What happens…..????

How it Works:

The oil floats on top of the water because it is less dense than water. The food coloring has the same density as the water so it sinks through the oil and mixes with the water. When you add the tablet it sinks to the bottom then starts to dissolve. As it dissolves it makes gas, carbon dioxide. The in turn creates bubbles. This will continue until the tablet is completely dissolved. The end- product clearly shows the separation of oil and water.

Green School Code Rap

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Toothpick and Jellytot structures #SciWk2014 (Step 3: Engineering)

On Tuesday, our classroom split up in groups to make our Jellytot and toothpick construction. In my group was me, Ailish and Amy. 💁
We started off by making 2-D triangles then we built it up and up and it fell a bit apart 🙈 but we managed to fix it using struts to strengthen the structure.
We tried out putting Ava’s huge rubber on it for 10 secs and it stayed on! 👀
When it came time to hold a bowl of 1 kilogram stuff, it slanted and fell! It stayed on for 8 seconds though! 😋
We were proud because who knew that anyone could make a structure using toothpicks and jelly tots?! 🙊

By April

Lava lamps #SciWk2014 (Step 1 : Materials)

Today, the 14th of November 2014, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th class made lava lamps. We started it off by being divided into two groups, the first group would fill their plastic bottles half full with water. The second group would do the same things as the first except instead of water they would fill the bottles with oil.Once that was done we got into our other groups, (the ones for making the lava lamps). Some of us weren’t in groups and some of us were. then the bottles that had oil in them put in water and the bottles that had water in them put oil in the bottles. The oil came to the top of the bottle and the water sank to the bottom.Then everyone put food colouring into the bottles. We had a choice of red, green and blue food colouring. I put in green food colouring. Afterwards some of us put in 1 an Alka Seltzer and let the lava lamps settle while we were out at break. After break the people who didn’t put in an Alka Seltzer put in two of them so they could see how it worked on their bottles. It’s very handy that when we didn’t have the Alka Seltzer we could just turn the bottle upside down and it worked the same way it just didn’t work for as long. It was really cool to see that we could make our own lava lamps with oil, water and food colouring instead of buying a lava lamp!

By Amy

Tornado in a bottle #SciWk2014 (Step 1: Energy and Forces)

On Wednesday we did an experiment. The experiment was called “tornado in a bottle “.
First we got a plastic bottle,we filled 3/4 of the bottle up with water. We then added a small amount of black current to make the water into a light purple colour. Once we did that we put another bottle on top of the bottom bottle. We stuck that on with duct tape. Once we had secured the two bottles with duct tape we flipped the bottle over and shook it so the water looked like a tornado while moving into the other bottle. It was a great experiment and I really enjoyed it.

By Sophie

Germination #SciWk2014 (Step 1: Living Things)

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On Monday we began an experiment with germinating peas. We all went in groups. Abby and I were in a group.

First we got cardboard plates and some tissue paper. Then we put the tissue on the plate. Then we each placed 8 peas on the tissue then we poured water on it. Our teacher put Ailish and Lisa’s under a web cam. The web camera takes photos every 15 minutes. There is a pea that has a root comming out of it and the other has a crack in it. On Friday we watched a video of the peas germinating (see below). It was really cool.

By Grace

Science Week – Chasing Pepper

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Science Week Fun!

The children had so much fun trying out different experiments this week for Science Week. We explored and learned about air pressure, surface tension, electric charge and floating and sinking. The children were amazed by some of the results and were so interested in the science behind it. Here are some photos of our experiments.