We have been very busy here in first, second and third class in Gortskehy with Science and Engineering lately.

We sowed seeds in the classroom. First class sowed cress, second class sowed runner beans and third class sowed baby carrots. We are having great fun watching these grow.

We completed a project on The Leaning Tower of Pisa and we learned lots of interesting facts. We learned that it is a Romanesque building, and that poor foundations caused it to lean. It was designed by engineers. It is a huge tourist attraction and over 1 million people visit it every year. We used our Chromebooks to create a slide show in pairs. We cast our projects to the board and we enjoyed looking at each others work. We created our own version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in art class using match sticks and cotton buds.

We have some big Manchester United supporters here in Gortskehy! We recently looked into the Munich Air Crash for history. It  was a terrible event for Man United. We worked as journalists and wrote newspaper articles about the tragedy. We wrote about the slippery runway and how the aircraft had difficulty taking off, resulting in the accident. We learned that Sir Bobby Charlton survived the accident and played many more matches for Man United. We worked in groups and created a presentation on our Chromebooks and we shared it on the board. Finally, we put our engineering hats on and created models of the aircraft using recycled materials and our imaginations!

During Engineers Week (March 2nd-8th 2019), we put our engineering hats on again! We used our imagination and our knowledge of the world and how things are made to create 3-D drawings. We had to think practically and use our problem solving skills to create these structures. We made everything from baby play gyms, to playgrounds, to underground drills, to water-parks, and lots more wonderful things.

We really enjoyed our recent work as engineers in the middle room. It allowed us to develop our creativity and problem solving skills. We had to share our ideas and work together as a team to come up with our amazing creations. We really enjoyed using the Chromebooks to create our projects and loved incorporating technology into our learning.

Who knows, we may have the next budding engineer in our midst here in Gortskehy – Watch this space!

A snapshot of rang 1-3 at work

Best of luck to Evan & Cathal (5th class) who have been accepted to the NUI Galway Youth Academy Spring programme.  The 6-week programme is a wonderful opportunity for primary school students to get experience of learning in a University.

Evan will study Biotechnology & Biomedical Engineering –  “Biolegos: Engineering with the Building Blocks of Life“.

Cathal will learn about Irish law in the course “The World of Cops and Robbers: Learning the Law”.

We look forward to hearing all about Evan’s & Cathal’s unique experience and learning a thing or two from them too!