Wow! What a week that was! This past week we celebrated STEM week in Scoil Chaitríona and boy were we busy. Every day, classes took part in all sorts of challenges, workshops and competitions both in school and at home. A huge thank you to everyone who helped make the week such an enjoyable and worthwhile experience.
Throughout the week, 1st to 6th class competed in a daily STEM challenge. Each day, the children in each class were given a timed engineering challenge to complete. The best designs in each class were compared and points were given to each class based on their results. The leaderboard was EXTREMELY tight on the last day but Mr. Maher’s 5th class managed to clinch the win in the final challenge. They were rewarded with an Oobleck workshop with Mr. Maher as reward for their excellent engineering skills during the week! Take a look at some of the challenges down below.
Each morning, classes also took part in the ‘Under the Microscope’ challenge. They were shown a zoomed in photograph of a natural object. They had to use their skills of deduction to figure out what the picture could be. We had loads of sharp eyed winners during the week. You can see the pictures down below.
At home, children were challenged to think of some ‘I wonder…’ questions inspired by the world around them in our ‘Science Eyes’ competition. We had some amazing scientific questions flying in from Junior Infants to 6th class. You can read a sample of some of them down below. Everyone who sent in some question was given a raffle ticket. We will pull the winners on Monday for some very exciting STEM prizes.
3rd to 6th class had some very exciting visitors during STEM week. We had visitors in from the Royal College of Surgeons on Tuesday. They ran a DNA Cell Investigators workshop for all the boys and girls in 3rd to 6th class. We learned all about DNA and cells and even extracted some DNA from a banana ourselves! A huge thank you to all the scientists who came out to help us.
We also had Buddy Science sessions running in the school. During these sessions, the Senior classes came down to the Junior classes to teach them some exciting science. 5th class visited Junior infants to conduct some Fizzy Colours science experiments. We made some crazy chemical reactions and used them to make some interesting art pieces.
Finally, Mr Maher’s 5th class launched their ‘Living Wax Museum’ on Thursday. Everyone in the class spent the last week research the life of an important STEAM hero. We created a research project board about their life made a model to go with them. We created costumes for each of the STEAM heroes and learned a 30 second speech about their lives. Then came the exciting part. On Thursday morning we transformed our classroom into a Living Wax Museum. Everyone dressed up as their research hero and stood very still. Then classes came to visit our museum and ‘switched on’ our wax models. They told their life story to the visitors. Everyone in the school learned something new about a STEAM hero! A huge well done to everyone in 5th class for pulling off such an incredible event!
