Junior Infants, Senior Infants, 1st and 6th Classes went on a very successful Eco Safari last week here in Gortskehy. Before we set off, we discussed road safety and the children put on their hi-vis vests. The excitement was palpable. We then explored the natural hedgerows that exist close by our school.

The children were very enthusiastic and interested, we brought magnifying glasses and collection jars to help with our search. We found lots of minibeasts, natural vegetation and even a fossil! The children worked in groups and had fun filling out their Eco Safari journals. The whole experience was so enjoyable and very educational. We are looking forward already to our next Eco Safari. Please take the time to view the video of our safari.

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Last Friday our middle room had great fun making lava lamps for science. We did this by mixing oil and water in a plastic bottle. We watched and observed that the oil floated to the top. This is because oil is less dense or lighter than water. We then added food colouring of our choice followed by a fizzy tablet and watched our creations work.

Here is a video of our space balloon flight which was launched on Thursday, June 22nd, 2017 from Frank and Mary Clarke’s farm. It reached an altitude of 28km. There are five layers to our atmosphere – Troposphere (up to 20km high), Stratosphere (20-50km), Mesosphere (50-85km), Thermosphere (85-600km), Exosphere (600-10,000km). Our balloon reached the Stratosphere.

Around 20km high ice-crystals are visible and the temperature drops to -51°C. In the Stratosphere the temperature actually increased with altitude to -40°C  as ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun is absorbed by the ozone layer. Had our balloon reached the top of the stratosphere the temperature would have risen to about -15°C  before falling sharply again in the Mesosphere. It landed 125km away between Castlepollard and Athboy on the farm of Eamon and Margureite Kelly.

Thanks to Frank and Mary Clarke, our sponsors CMS Distribution and DeCare Dental and chase car drivers Mary Lydon, Jan Wilkins and Angela Walshe.

The video of the flight is 360° so view it fullscreen to pan around. Control the 360 degree fullscreen video on your phone or tablet by moving your device.  To view it on a VR headset visit https://youtu.be/XPfoCtv5NSA or search for “Gortskehy in Space” using your VR YouTube app.

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Video: Space balloon flight https://t.co/G0CPxSR6Ss via @gortskehy. So proud of my old N. S. Congrats to all involved.

— Andy Tierney (@Jamesatierney) July 14, 2017

CMS expansion now reaches space! Courtesy of sponsorship of the @gortskehy #space balloon flight. We have video > https://t.co/u3lWRMhBpm pic.twitter.com/CeWIUJcBGL

— CMS Distribution (@CMSDistribution) July 25, 2017

3D prediction of the flight path.

Some of the towns the balloon flew over.

This intrepid school from Hollymount lauched a space balloon! https://t.co/BuFA61KSbq @AllThingsMayo @gortskehy pic.twitter.com/88kCl4EPuF

— Mayo.ie (@MayoDotIE) July 15, 2017

We celebrated science week in the middle room with some exciting experiments!

We created a rainbow using skittles and warm water. We put the skittles on a plate in different shapes, then we poured some warm water in the middle and watched as the colour slowly started to run from the skittles, creating a rainbow. We even created a Mayo-themed rainbow!

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On Thursday we had fun with another interesting experiment. We created a volcano using bread soda and vinegar. We put some bread soda in a bottle and then added vinegar and watched as our volcano erupted! We learned that a chemical reaction between the the vinegar and bread soda caused the eruption.

The life-cycle of the butterfly.

This week the pupils in the Junior Room learned all about the life-cycle of the butterfly.