Discover Science and Maths Award 2016

The Sixth Class Science Fair was held on Thurs. Oct. 15th. Leading up to the event we worked in pairs and groups researching our topics, carrying out experiments and designing posters. Our teacher put links to suitable science websites and links on our class website and we used these as part of our research. On the day we presented our findings to students, teachers, parents, siblings and grandparents.

Ashling Sharry in Ms Gavan's Sixth Class who designed the image for the t-shirts this year.

Kyna Kennedy & Emma O'Brien
Sixth Class
Mrs Gavan

Winners of the Teachers Choice Award, Clare Mulrooney, Jessica Duignan and Alana McDonnell for their project 'It's in your DNA'

Joint First Place Winners - Leah Kennedy Carney and Louise Murphy, 'Terrible Teeth' and Hannah Kinsella, 'Under Pressure'

Joint Second Place Winners - Amy Melinn and Mia Kennedy 'Growing Bacteria' and Ellen Dunne 'Wacky Water'

Joint Third Place Winners - Wiktoria Janerko 'How do I remove the cork?' and Caoimhe Farrell and Jessica Fitzgibbon 'Powerful Planes'

My science project was about the digestive system. I did an experiment to show how food travels through the body.

I learnt a lot of different things from my project. Some interesting facts that I learnt were…

• It takes about 36 hours for a man to digest food.
• Your small intestine is about half the length of a basketball court
• Our salivary glands produce about 1.5L of saliva each day
• It takes about 7 seconds for food to travel down the esophagus
• The adult stomach is very small when empty but when full can hold about 1.5L of food

I really enjoyed doing my project because I found very interesting facts about the digestive system and what happens inside my body. My favourite part of science fair was presenting my project to all the girls in my school and teaching them about the digestive system.

Ellie Finlan
Sixth Class
Mrs Gavan

For me, the science fair was fun, educational, interesting, and exciting.

It was fun because we got t-shirts and I loved talking to the children and preparing our project and everybody was really passionate and interested in their projects which I think was one of the most important parts.

It was interesting to find out all the facts and to see the inside of a real pig heart. We knew all the facts off by heart and so did people from most of the other projects. It was also very interesting to find out facts from other projects and hear how passionate all my classmates were about different topics.

It was exciting because I couldn't wait to present our project because we put so much work into it. I was also very excited to present to different age groups because whenever we did projects before we were just presenting to our class but this time we were presenting the same project to four year olds and twelve year olds and it was really fun to find facts that were suitable for both age groups. That is what I liked most about the science fair.

Ailbhe Sadlier
Sixth Class
Mrs Gavan

Question: Can pepper break down water tension?

Our Experiment: We sprinkled ground black pepper all over a bowl filled with water. Then we dipped our finger in Fairy washing up liquid, and dipped our finger in the pepper and water. All the pepper scattered to the side of the bowl. This is because half of the soap molecule is attracted to the water molecule and half of it isn’t. This is our explanation.

By Enya Braha & Ayodola Adekunle
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

Questions: What drinks make your teeth rot?
Topic: Human body, teeth
What you need:

• White duck eggs
• drink
• jars (all the same size)
• paper plates
• spoon
• knife

Procedure:
STEP1: Hard boil the egg
STEP2: Fill each jar with a different drink
STEP3: Put the eggs into the drinks
STEP4: Leave them in the drinks for 2 weeks
STEP5: Take pictures daily
STEP6: Cut the eggs open to see how far the rot has gone down into the egg

Louise Murphy & Leah Kennedy Carney
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

Topic: Materials
Question: Can oil and water mix?
Way of presentation: Through form of lava lamp.
Ingredients:

• 4 jam jars
• Coke
• Water
• Food die
• Oil
• A form of citric acid

How we got on: At the start of the Science Fair we started out with presenting to our class. Once the students started coming in we started to show our project to them. For the junior infants we described oil and water as 'little people that aren’t friends'. But as we went up through the years we advanced in the language we used the full vocabulary and scientific language for the adults and teachers.

Gemma Staunton & Arwen Kennedy Carney
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

Topic: WaterTransportation
Question: How Does Water Travel Through Plants?
We used: a jar or two, red food colouring, celery and flowers.
We got the jar and filled it half way with water and put a teaspoon or more of food colouring in it.
Then we put flowers in one and celery in the other.

Grace Montgomery & Eve Grogan
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

Topic: Chemistry/Physics
Question: Why do glow sticks glow? Why does the food dye go to the bottom of the jar?
Summary: I got glow sticks and asked the children to bend them creating a cracking sound. This happens because there is a little glass tube in the glow stick containing chemicals that react to the fluorescent dye and give off the glow.

I got food dye, oil and water. I mixed the food dye and oil together and put it in the water and a few moments later the food dye separated from the oil and mixed with the water. This is because the food dye molecules and the water molecules are attracted to each other but oil and water don’t mix so the oil doesn’t go with the food dye.

Roísín Tigerford
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

Topic: Rainbows
Experiment: How are rainbows made naturally?

Our experiment was to find out how rainbows are made naturally! We read in our science book that a prism could be used to see a rainbow. We tested this using a torch and prism. This did not work very well so we tried looking through the prism, this worked better.

We first tried it with a torch because it said in our science book that if you used a torch and shined it against the prism we would see a rainbow against a black piece of paper. We tried this, it worked but it was very hard to see the rainbow. So we looked through the prism and it worked much better.

Athena Hannon & Bláthín Kelly
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

Topic: Materials/water and salt
Question: How does salt affect ice?
What we did:
First we got a glass of water and put an ice cube in it. We then put a piece of string over the ice cube and sprinkled some salt over the ice and string. We left it there for about a minute. Then we picked up the string and the ice was attached to the string.
The reason this happened:
When we sprinkled the salt on, the salt molecules dissolved and join the water molecules which is changing the ice’s temperature. The speed of melting was then much faster. However when the water made contact with the ice cube again it refroze, enclosing the string.

Leah Sheehan & Bec McCarty
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

Our Project: Chemical Reaction
What you will need:

• two litre bottle
• balloon
• vinegar
• backing powder/soda
• funnel(optional)

Procedure:

• Pour the vinegar into the bottle
• Using the funnel pour the baking powder into the balloon
• Attach the balloon to the bottle
• Shake the baking powder into the bottle
• Watch the balloon blow up!

Why is the balloon blowing up?
The baking powder and vinegar both have energy they don’t want. They help each other get rid of it. This lets off carbon dioxide witch blows up the balloon!

By Ellie Rose Cawley, Abby Turner & Ella Lacey
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

Blobs in a bottle

Queston: How are blobs formed in oil and water?
What you will need:

• 250 milliliter bottle
• Water
• Oil
• Food colouring
• A fizzing tablet

Procedure:
First you get your bottle and pour your water till it is half way of the bottle.
Next you get your oil and pour it in until your bottle is full.
Then you get your food colouring, (we like to use red) you only need two or three drops.
Finally you get your fizzing tablet (you only need half of one) and you put it in the mixture you have made. Wait for the magic to work.
Then you have made……..BLOBS IN A BOTTLE
How it works:
It works because the oil is ligthter than the water. When you put in the fizzing tablet in the bottle gas bubbles begin to form taking a piece of the food colouring and rising to the top which creates the blob effect.

By Jessica Cable, Sophie Hook and Charlotte McNally
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

The above project was created by Charlotte, Sophie and Jessica as part of their Science Day project

Topic: The heart

Question: Why does are heart beat faster when we exercise?

Project: We did our project on the heart we learned that your heart beats faster when we run because your heart produces waste and the more we exercise the more waste the heart produces. We also learned that your heart beats 100,000 times per day and your heat pumps 2.5 gallons of blood a day.

Topic: Potato Power
Question: Can a potato power an 'LED' bulb?
Equipment:

• Two Potatoes
• An LED bulb
• Copper wire
• Galvanised Nail
• Insulation Wire
• Tape
• Crocodile clips

Experiment: We got two potatoes and put a galvanised nail and a copper wire in each potato. We then connected it all together by using the insulation wire. We attached the ends of the wire to the LED. The bulb then lighted up!

Results: The bulb lit up because there is a chemical in the potato called H3P04 (Which is a fancy word for starch!) So how we got it to light up was when we used crocodile clips to touch against the LED bulb, which caused the bulb to light up! Spudtastic!

Ellen Lyons, Evie-Rose Hartigan & Zeta Hemeryck
Sixth Class
Ms Bohan

Take a look at some of the posters and models which we designed