Blog Submission

This is a log of our evidence for the Discover Primary Science and Maths STEM Plaque. Please scroll down for a look at some of what we have been doing this year. The tabs at the top of this page - SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, MATHS and SHOW AND TELL- show in more detail what the children have been learning. We had a great year focusing on STEM and will keep up the good work into the next school year and beyond! Enjoy!

Green Day of Action

Please click here to find out about our Green Schools Day of Action which took place on the 20th of February.

4th and 5th Class- Living Things

4th and 5th Class planted tomato seeds earlier this month. We collected yoghurt pots from all the classrooms and followed the activity on the sfi website as follows. The tomatoes are a tumbling variety. We will need to repot them in early April and hope to have tomatoes in June! We have recorded this activity on our ipads and are making a stopgo motion video about our tomatoes. (In the last picture you will see how we also planted sunflower seeds and have left them all in the spare classroom at the back of the school as it is much brighter than ours but does not have long periods of direct sunlight which would be harmful in growing the tomatoes)

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Planting Tomato Seeds

The time span of this project will last from seed sowing in early March through to the summer holidays. 

1. Sow seed individually in old yogurt containers. Follow instructions on seed packet as to sowing procedure. 

2. Keep in well-lit warm windowsill, water as necessary. 

3. Re-pot into a larger container using full strength potting compost once the plant is approx. 10 cm tall. 

4. Start using liquid fertiliser with each watering, following instructions on plant food container. 

5. Support plant with canes if necessary as the plant grows. 

6. This is a good activity to develop understanding, caring, responsibility... and like all gardening projects getting your hands dirty. 

Encourage pollination by stroking the flowers underneath with a paintbrush. Natural pollination by bees would be very limited in the classroom!

Science in Miss Maguire's Room

Senior Infants have been busy learning about Antarctica. They explored the "plants and animals" strand unit within the "Living things" strand. They labelled a penguin using it's main features- beak, flippers, webbed feet, feathers. They sequenced the life cycle of a penguin. They had great fun when they investigated how penguins keep warm even when they live in the coldest place on Earth. They used butter to act as the penguins blubber. They found out that penguins need their blubber to keep warm.