Our science fair

On Wednesday 3rd May we held our school science fair. Each class had a stand and a display area. We all go a chance to display our work and view other classes work. Here are some snaps.

A lot of people came

Measuring lung capacity

Testing for starch with iodine

Taking the KaHoot quiz

Trying the electric quiz

Dancing raisins

testing lung capacity

Capturing data on meteors landing on the moon

getting height measured

rocket launch

Lava lamps

Starch test

Trying out the magnetic car

Parachute testing

Which material makes the best parachute?

How strong are magnets?

A talk with a Scientist

Mr. Ciaran Carbery, who is doing post graduate study in Architecture and is basing his thesis on a study of our school and its proximity to the airport gave a talk to classes 3rd - 6th. As part of his work he had come up with a plan for our 'ideal school' and he showed us his computer model which we discussed. In addition he has measured the CO2 levels in our classrooms (quite high!) and the decibel levels and he showed us the instruments he used to take these measurements.

Static electricity- 1st class

First, we discussed electricity: what is it, where does it come from and what is it used for.
I asked the students trigger questions to figure out what they knew about static electricity. We discussed all the times they had gotten an 'electric shock'. Then we watched a video which helped us understand more about static electricity and how it works.

I demonstrated how static electricity works using a balloon that we rub on our hair, back and forth. (static electricity occurs when an electric charge builds up on an object. This can happen by rubbing certain things together). I showed the students how the static electricity on the balloon made my hair stand up.

The students then guessed which materials would move towards the balloon due to static electricity.

Each student then got a balloon and the materials- pieces of paper, a can, an elastic band, a paper clip, rice krispies and a pen. We rubbed the balloon back and forth on our hair to create static electricity. We then checked if each of the materials would move towards the balloon.

We discovered from our experiment that the pieces of paper,the rice krispies and the pen all moved towards the balloon.

Which paper absorbs best? -1st class

First we brainstormed the word 'absorb'. We discussed what we would use to mop up spills in the kitchen and what kind of clothes would dry the quickest on the washing line.

I then explained to the students what we would be investigating. We discussed how important it was to keep all the paper the same size to ensure that the experiment was fair.

We designed a support using boxes and a meter stick.We then hung the pieces of paper from the support using pegs. We placed water in clear containers and a few drops of red food colouring which helped to show up the water. We then hung the pieces of paper so that they were just dipping in the water.

After a few minutes we used a ruler to measure in cm what distance the water travelled up the different strips of paper. We filled in the results on a table and ordered the paper according to how well they absorbed the water.

The results of the experiment showed that the napkin was the best absorber as the liquid travelled 12cm.