Engineering for Engineers Week

Next  week (March 4th to 10th) is Engineers Week.

We know that engineers think about ways in which to make life easier.

We know that engineers design and make things.

Today we were talking about global warming, the melting of the polar ice and flooding.

We acted like engineers and we designed and made flood defenses to protect our Lego men.

Along the way we tried a few other investigations:

We made a bottle containing a (water and oil) wave.

We used a straw to make waves on water.

We tested to see what the pressure of water felt like using a plastic bag under water.

We melted land ice (ice on top of modelling clay) and sea ice (ice directly in water) to see which melting ice would cause flooding and which would not.

And we used a half black, half white box to check and see if the temperature in the black half raised more than the temperature in the white half (this test was inconclusive because the temperature in both halves rose above 26 degrees and our thermometer stops at this temperature.  Maybe we will try this again with different thermometers.) 

We were really interested to hear that when polar ice melts, the colour of the area affected changes from white (ice and snow) to greeen, brown or blue (the colour of land or sea).  Areas that are dark in colour absorb more heat and thus heat up more quickly than white areas.  This causes the remaining ice in this area to melt even more quickly, making the area darker and so heating up more quickly.  Of course, as we saw earlier land ice from the polar caps that melts causes the sea level to rise and causes flooding.

We can really see the connection now between global warming, melting polar caps and flooding.  We are especially sorry for polar bears and penguins who make this ice their home.

Smyths Models

Community Games

U12 Girls Soccer

Any girls (under 12 on July 31st) from Mervue, Ballybane, Renmore, Wellpark, Bohermore or College Road who would like to take part in the upcoming community games soccer event please contact Martin on 086-1516817.

Swimming trials will take place (all ages, all strokes) in the Kingfisher Club, Renmore, on Saturday March 4th at 4pm. Registration is at 3:45pm, costs €5 and you will need a birth certificate.

Fruit and Vegetable Tasting Day

We had a super day today.

Each student brought a fruit and a vegetable to school today.

Look at the wonderful selection we had:

First of all we counted all the fruit and vegetables that we got.

We made a data chart of this information.

Next we classified our fruit and veg.

We sorted our groups into sub groups of which part of the plant produced the food (root, seed or stem).  We classified the items according to whether they had a strong smell or no smell at all.  We used our sense of touch to see whether each item was rough or smooth.  We classified according to colour and we ordered the items according to their shape (sphere, cylinder or oval-shaped) and then according to their weight (we used the weighing balance to test this).

We cut each piece to see whether there were seeds (pips), a stone or no visible seeds.

Finally we tasted every piece of fruit or vegetable and recorded whether we liked it or not.

There were even prizes for everyone who tried all 19 pieces.

It was like a feast day!

Thank you to all the mums and dads who helped out by sending in the fruit and veg!