DPSM Award Number WW008 (2017-2018)

Welcome to our submission for the Discover Primary Science Awards 2017-2018. Our award number is WW008. This is our first digital log and we are very excited for you to see some of the great things that have been going on in St. Fergals School in relation to STEM. We regret that we can't fit everythikng in so we chose some of the highlights of our work to share with you.

Steps of Awards.

For Step 1 - Science under the strand Materials, we looked at Creeping Colours, Effects of heating and cooling, and Lava Lamps.

Under the strand Living Things we looked at How Plants Drink.

Under the strand Energy and Forces we looked at Sound Insulation, Creepy Reflections and Floating Finger, Static Electricity and Magnetism.

Under the strand Environmental Awareness and Care we made some bird feeders, we investigated the signs of Spring in our school surroundings and investigated the effects of Global Warming.

Also we visited Sea Life in Bray which is one of the Discovery Centres and our Science Speaker Grace Guard visited us throughout the year to talk about many different aspects of Science and brought us outside into the school garden and surrounding area of the school..

For Step 2 Technology - some of the classes took part in SCRATCH (coding). We also made bar graphs on our computers to show our Maths DATA. We also did a number of Internet Safety Day activities including looking at a Powerpoint Presentations and making posters about staying safe online.

In St Fergals we are lucky to not only have the use of some computers in our classrooms we also have a designated Computer Room to use in both the Junior and Senior buildings. Some of favourite websites for STEM reasearch are National Geographic, Science4kids, worldbookonline, topmarks, factmonster etc.

The teachers in St Fergals have also received CPD training recently and we have come away with a fountain of new ideas and APPS to try. We are looking forward to using these going forwards.

For Step 3 - Engineering we did a number of Design and Make activities (namely Bridge, Diver and Boat)

We also looked at Henry's Piano book which looks at simple machines and their usage in moving a heavy piano. We then had to put together a model using all of the simple machines.

Afterwards we investigated engineering in our local area - Playground.

We also invited our resident, engineer and caretaker Joe Carroll into the classroom to discuss his job with the children. He identified areas where he used simple machines (pulleys, levers, screws, inclied planes) in his work. We asked him alot of questions and he made us think alot!!

For Step 4 - Maths we looked at measurement. We measured heights, shoe sizes (and compared them at two different stages throughout the year). We also measured areas around the school and also the Weather. We had great fun with this.

Also for Step 4 we developed Maths trails around the school.

For Step 5 - STEM Showcase the 3rd classes put on a great Science Display Day in the school hall. They developed a timetable and all of the school got a slot to go down, look at investigations and try them out. The 3rd classes were excellent at explaining each ones and their Teachers Ms Smyth and Ms Clarke were very proud. It was a very busy day but great fun!!

All of the steps are documented below with pictures!

ENJOY!!!!!