We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to Mr. Horan, Denise Mooney, the rest of the staff, and students of St. Patrick’s Boys National School. Mr. Horan asked Mrs. Flynn to send representatives from Donabate Community College to participate in their Science week show on Friday, November 14th. We were made feel so welcome, and we thank Mrs. Flynn, Mr. McCormack and all our teachers for allowing us to go. Ms. Sheehan asked Rebecca Nolan, Colm Murphy, Bernard Hollands and Sarah McGrath to accompany her.
On the 14th of November, St Patrick’s Boys School held their annual Science Fair. There were tables set up with different experiments from each of the different years ranging from Junior Infants to 6th class. There was the classic volcano experiment, the film canister that, when shook, popped the top off of it and the table on the balloons along with many others.
On the physics table was a wide variety of equipment for experiments. The fair began at half nine and the first class came in to the hall in the Boys’ school. The people at the stalls had been setting up since nine o’clock and Ms Sheehan explained to all of us what the different pieces of equipment do.
Over the course of the day, all of the classes from the Boys’ school visited along with the fifth and sixth classes from the Girls’ school and a fifth class from Educate Together. There were a number of items on the physics table that were quite popular. The Van de Graaff generator had a long queue and there was a bird that could balance on any surface by its nose, this was quite popular with everyone who all wanted to test it. There was also a periscope that allowed you to see behind you and over objects and a wind gun that shot a blast of air at someone.
Before we packed up, Ms Sheehan did a demonstration of shooting a paper rocket from a pump. After everyone crowded around, Ms Sheehan shot the rocket making it fly through the hall and get stuck in one of the high beams in the hall.
It was a brilliant day and it was a really good experience for both the students attending the fair as they got the chance to see what science would be like in secondary school and for us helping out as we got to demonstrate different equipment and experiments and to meet the students from the other schools and it was so inspiring to see such young students engaging in Science. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and look forward to future such activities.
– Written by Rebecca, Colm, Bernard and Sarah