Science Projects: April 2010

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Monday, April 26, 2010

Volcanic Science from other school pages

Be sure to see the wonderful volcanoes that were made in Room 8 on http://scoilchaitrionajnrmrstreacy.blogspot.com/2010/04/volcano.html and in Ms. Costello's class on http://scoilchaitrionajnrmisscostello.blogspot.com/2010/04/volcanoes.html and http://scoilchaitrionajnrmisscostello.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.html

Human food pyramid

Monday, 26th April, 2010

We have been talking about the food pyramid, which are the foods that are good or bad for us, and how many of each food group we should eat daily. Today we made a human food pyramid. We played a game of identifying a food, then putting it where it should be, on the food pyramid. We found this quite challenging.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Planting our school garden: Medtronic Healthy Living Project

Our Healthy Living project, very kindly sponsored by Medtronic Foundation
Week 1, Planting our school garden under the advice and help of Kay Synott, April 13th, 2010.

Week 2, More planting and watering with Kay. Some of our seeds are coming up. Fantastic presentation from Brendan Smith all about healthy living.

Week 3, Making a human Food Pyramid

Week 3, Food Art

Week 4, Tasting fruits and vegetables

Week 4, Printing faces with fruits and vegetables

Week 5, Gardening and watching our plants grow

Week 6, Gardening

Week 6, Creatures in our class

Week 6, Wishing tree and more food art

Week 7, Mini beast hunt

Week 8 Sheep's heart dissection

Friday, April 23, 2010

Litter Picking with Room 5

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Our Art - mirroring science around us

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
We like to talk about things happening around us. We have been talking about the volcano in Iceland. Teacher showed us a great video of a helicopter flying over the volcano, and we saw great photos (you can see them too by clicking the links on our History and Geography page under the heading - Volcanoes).
Today we painted our own volcanoes. We think they look really realistic!

We are also talking about forces, pushing and pulling. We thought it would be very interesting to make a toy that worked by pushing and pulling it - a toy made with a lever. Since we have just planted lots of seeds, we thought a flower would be suitable.

Here is a flower, made from a toilet roll and card, which can shrink and grow, not by watering it, but by using its lever (a skewer) to push and pull it. Why not try making one at home?

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Medtronic Healthy Living

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

Thanks to Medtronic Foundation in Galway, our school has been chosen to participate in the "Medtronic Healthy Living project 2010". This means that Medtronic have very kindly sponsored our school in building a school garden,

under the excellent guidance of Ms. Kay Synott,

and in inviting Mr. Brendan Smith of DERI to visit our school to tell us all about how to live in a healthy way.

Today, Brendan and Kay came to visit the Senior Infant classes. While Kay continued to plant the school garden with children from Ms. McLoughlin's and Mrs. Newell's classes, Brendan had a fascinating presentation for the children in Ms. Flannery's, Mrs. Treacy's, Mrs. Geraghty's, Ms. Gilligan's, Ms. Flaherty's, Mrs. Newell's and Ms. McLoughlin's classes. We learned such a lot in a very interesting way.

Here are some of the very interesting things we learned from Brendan:

all living things need energy - we get energy from food and from the air around us
all trees have lots of animal, insect and fungi life around them - the oak tree has up to 450 types of animal and plant life living with it
that we breathe in Oxygen (O2) and breathe out Carbon Dioxide (CO2), plants and trees do the opposite - they breathe in CO2 and breathe out O2. We need lots of trees and plants around us so that we have plenty of clean Oxygen to breathe
If there is too much CO2 we get the greenhouse effect - the heat on our planet gets trapped and this keeps our planet too warm, causing ice to melt, which is a huge problem for the dwindling numbers (20,000) of polar bears left on this planet
We cut down on CO2 emessions by planting trees. Trees are often cut down for wood (desks, houses etc) or so food can be grown on land. We need to plant more and look after the trees we have on this planet
Our organs - heart, lungs, digestive system, circulatory system (all explained with really interesting and easy to follow diagrams). Did you know that * if you joined all your blood vessels together they would wrap round the earth 4 times? * adults have 10 litres of blood in their bodies *your heart is the same size as your fist * it takes 24 hours to digest your food
We learned about the food pyramid, and saw pictures of what would happen if you ate too much of the wrong foods, too little food, no food at all, too much food
We learned about fish oils, the life cycle of the salmon, the legend of Fionn and the Salmon of Knowledge
We learned about vitamins and water (70% of our bodies are made of water)
That most pirates were ugly, because all their teeth were rotten and fell out because they had a disease called Scurvy which they got because they didn't eat any Vitamin C (the vitamin you get in Citrus fruits like oranges, lemons and limes)
Dangers of pollution to fish and turtles
How to prevent pollution and to clean up litter
How we will be able to eat food from our garden that will give us lots of vitamins and keep us healthy. What exactly an "organic garden" is - no artificial fertiliser or pest or weed killers

We finished up by watching an excellent video on Swans, made by 6th class in the Claddagh National school in Galway - well done class, we were so impressed and learned lots about swans by watching your video.

Well done to Brendan for a super super presentation, and for all the really interesting slides and photos you showed us, and the interesting things you told us. We will try to eat healthy food, exercise in a healthy way, keep everywhere clean and litter free and look after ourselves and our planet as best we can. Here is a picture of him taking a photo of our school garden. Wait till he sees it next time!

School Garden, Week 2

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Planting potatoes in Room 5

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

We had some potatoes left over from our garden planting on Tuesday, so today we planted just 3 potatoes in an empty compost bag. We planted them in compost and we watered them well. We hope they will grow, and give us a bag full of potatoes.

Mrs. Treacy's class and Mrs. Newell's class planted 3 potatoes each too. We wonder who will have the best potato crop in a few months time?

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Bugs in the classroom

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Yesterday we had a few little ants in our classroom. We think they might have come looking for some juice that spilt. We looked at them with magnifying glassses and have decided that they must be insects because they each have 6 legs.

The weather has got warmer. Today Maggie caught a wasp that was flying round our class. With 6 legs, it too is an insect. Maggie trapped it in a transparent plastic container so we could have a good look at it before releasing it outside. The wasp was yellow and black and the body was shiny.

When everyone was gone home a bumble bee flew into the class. This time it was teacher who trapped it. She showed it to two 3rd class girls who had come on a message. This bee was an insect too (6 legs) and was also yellow and black, but had a lovely furry body. To see wasps and bumble bees means that the weather is heating up and hopefully a nice warm summer is on the way!

Bug, Shell and Seaweed Hunt

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Planting a School Garden

Scoil Chaitríona Junior are thrilled to be included in this year's Medtronic Healthy Living project. Thanks to the Medtronic Foundation in Galway, we are being funded, advised on and helped with the building and planting of our own school garden. The work began in earnest today with our first planting session.

Kay Synott has come to be our advisor. She had a meeting with Brendan Smith (who will help us learn about foods that are good for us, and how to keep ourselves and our hearts healthy) and our teacher. They have chosen a good spot for our garden - in the front of the school, in a lovely sunny spot.

When Kay arrived today she had a chat with our class and Mrs. Newell's class about which fruits and vegetables we should plant and why? We decided not to plant bananas or oranges since they don't grow well in Ireland! We can't plant crisps or chips but if we plant potatoes we hope we can make our own crisps and/or chips.

We helped Kay prepare the raised boxes. We did the smoothing of the compost, making seed drills, planting the seeds, writing the labels, fetching water from the water butt, and watering the seeds. All the while we talked about what seeds need to grow (air, warmth and water), what is counted as a weed (any plant that is growing where it shouldn't be) and how to look after the seeds we planted. We know we should eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day. We can't wait to try tasting the ones we planted.

Today we planted potatoes, sunflowers, onions, scallions, carrots and nasturtiums. Next Tuesday we will plant strawberries, spinach and peas. We just love gardening. Thanks Kay and Medtronic!!

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Greenwave

Our school is taking part in the Greenwave project again this year. That means we look for, record and take pictures of the signs of spring - when the buds on the Hawthorn turn green,