Category: Science Foundation Ireland – Discover Science & Maths

Evidence of Herbertstown National School’s commitment to achieving an award for STEM Excellence.

Step 1 – Science

Step 2 – Technology

Step 3 – Engineering

Step 4 – Maths

Step 5 – STEM Show & Tell

Herbertstown NS secures Second Place in National Awards

Staff

The school has been awarded second place in the National Cornmarket Cumann na mBunscol Awards in the Promotion of Gaelic Games and Culture category.

Members of the school staff were at the awards ceremony in Sligo on Friday night where the awards were presented. A video created in the school which highlighted the 2018 fourth class project on hurleys for the RDS Primary Science Fair was entered for consideration and the video received great plaudits on the night. The video was on display for the over 200 guests in attendance.

This morning, the current fifth class who completed the project and starred in the video, were pictured with the award and the one they received at the Fair in January 2018.

Third/Fourth Mark Engineer’s Week

Staff

Third/Fourth class marked Engineer’s Week and the contribution of engineers to our daily lives with a series of activities.

Each child came up with a design of a machine that would transform their lives. There were a range of inventions from money making machines to dog walking robots and even a machine that would turn spiders & mice into kittens!

Inventions that WILL change the World

A construction activity was a great source of fun during Engineer’s Week. The pupils had to work in small groups to construct a tower using foam blocks. A Minion would be placed on top of the highest block and the height of the tower would then be measured. Pupils needed to use all the blocks and ensure that all the blocks in the construction were connected. Well done to the winning team whose tower rose to 73cm!

There was also an Engineer’s Week colouring competition where the pupils coloured pictures of different types of engineers. Congratulations to the prizewinners!

ANALOG Learn It Lego Robitics Competition

Staff

Yesterday on Tuesday the 29th of January, 5th and 6th class took part in the Learn it Lego Robotics competition. At ten o’ clock two people called Fergal and Cormac came in to show us how to build and program our robots. We were put in to groups with a box of Mindstorm Lego and a computer between us.

The first thing we had to do was build our robots using instructions on our computers. After we had built our robots we learned how to program them, our first task was to program it to go back and forth a certain distance. When we had mastered back and forth, Cormac and Fergal laid out a map of a maze. Our task was to get around the maze without going outside the black lines, it took a lot of measuring and being precise to finally get around the maze. If you had conquered the maze you could add on the colour sensor to detect different colours.

One team containing three six class girls got to the last stage which involved building an arm for your robot and programing it to pick up a coloured cube. At the end of the day they announced the winner.

The runner up was Team 1 Lillian, Holly and Keelin, and the winners were Team 9 Ella, Eva and Chloe. Overall it was a brilliant day. The three girls will be going to the final on the 3rd of March in Analog Devices.

Third/Fourth Test Their Measuring & Designing Skills

Staff

Third/Fourth class used their construction skills today to design and make paper aeroplanes ahead of competition to see whose plane could fly the furthest!

Mrs Brosnan then brought the children outside where the ‘flights’ took place. Following this the children used the measuring skills they have been honing this week during maths to measure the distance travelled by their creations. Well done to Christian whose plane flew the furthest!

3rd/4th Experiment with Coca Cola

Staff

The pupils of third & fourth class investigated the effects of Coca Cola on old coins.

The pupils documented what the coins looked like before submerging them in Coca Cola for 24 hours and then checked the results. The majority of groups noticed a big difference in the coins once they gave them a clean up once they came out of the coke.

Mathletics November Numeracy Challenge

Staff

Herbertstown NS recently took part in The November Numeracy Challenge 2018 – an online maths competition contested by Mathletics schools from across Europe, the UK, the Middle East and Africa.

 

The competition was run over one week, seeing students compete in live, multi-player challenges plus answering self-paced adaptive maths curriculum questions, all using Mathletics.

Throughout the week, Herbertstown NS pupils were well placed on the national scoring charts and our classes featured very prominently in Ireland’s top 20 schools. Once the final results were totted up from all participating schools around the world, Herbertstown NS placed 75th out of over 400 schools. Upon closer inspection of the results, it became clear that Herbertstown NS was the highest ranked school from the Republic of Ireland!

 

Well done to everyone that put in such a huge effort both in school and at home.

 

Mathletics will continue to be a valuable resource for our pupils for the rest of the school year with plenty of certificates and prizes still to be won.

Experiments & More

Staff

Science Week

 

Third/Fourth class looked at the use of arches in construction through studying the strength of eggshells. The class used maths books to test the strength of 4 egg shell halves. An amazing 14 books were stacked on the shells before they broke!

 

1st Class pupil makes ‘catch-in-cup’ game at home for Science Week.

 

Third/Fourth Investigate Capillary Action

2nd and 3rd Class Become Engineers for Science Week

Staff

Mr. Gubbins’ class became architects and engineers for science week when they looked at how bridges are built.

First, they learned about the longest suspension bridges in the world – some of them nearly reaching an amazing 2km in length! Next, they created a list of words that describe a strong bridge, including: ‘sturdy’, ‘supported’ and ‘stable’. Then it was down to work!
In groups, the girls and boys task was to create a bridge across their desks that a toy car could drive across. They were given points for teamwork, the strength of the bridge, and the overall bridge design. Some fantastic problem solving and cooperation was seen by all the groups and, although some bridges didn’t go exactly to plan, lots was learned about what makes a bridge strong and safe. It was great fun!

Science Week in Full Swing

Staff

Science Week is in full swing in Herbertstown NS!

 

In the Senior Infants/1st classroom the boys and girls have been busy exploring materials and their properties.

In third/fourth class the pupils investigated how sound travels through different materials. The experiment involved using a clothes hanger and string to tap off objects and observe the sound made. The pupils then repeated this while holding the string in their ears. The experiment produced some interesting results!

 

Third/Fourth also investigated the buoyancy of objects in fresh water vs salt water.

Year Long Investigation into Pumpkins

Staff

Our current fourth/fifth class completed a year long investigation into the life cycle of pumpkins.

 

In October of 2017 we harvested the seeds from a shop-bought pumpkin which we were using for our Halloween Jack O’Lantern. We cleaned the seeds and placed them in a cool, dry place until 2018.

 

In the Spring of 2018, we planted the seeds in small cups and placed them on the classroom windowsill. From here we monitored their growth and ensured they were getting plenty of sunshine and water. After a couple of weeds we transplanted the now growing plants to larger pots.

 

Once the plants were large enough, we started to harden off the plants by placing them outside during the day and taking them in before hometime.

 

Finally, before the holidays, the pupils were able to bring them home for their own gardens.

 

Here are some pictures below of the pumpkins the children grew from their plants!

One of the pumpkins on a visit to the school!

Luke’s pumpkin

Katie’s Pumpkin

Christian’s pumpkin