Spooky Chromatography
We learned all about mixing and separating colours. We experimented with different coloured markers to try to seperate the colours. We learned that filter paper and water seperate the colours into their individual dyes, through a process known as chromatography. It was great fun to try different colours and see how they separated. We then created spooky art.
Science Blast
May 2019
We went to Mary Immaculate College in Limerick with our project 'What is the difference between top brand and own brand biscuits?' Firstly we designed some surveys to decide which biscuits we would focus our investigation on. We surveyed the whole school and also asked some questions about differences between real and own brand biscuits. We studied the surveys and got some interesting comments and feedback.
We compared and contrasted the biscuits under a variety of headings and learned a lot about the differences by just looking at the packaging.
Next we tasted the biscuits and compared the taste, texture, smell etc. We attempted to pick the top brand biscuit out of all the biscuits we tasted.
We formulated our results and conclusions together as a class.
In Limerick we set up our tasting stand and were popular with the other schools for a tasty treat! We discovered that it depends on the biscuit whether people can recognise the top brand from the others. Oreos are easy to recognise but it is not as easy to pick out the McVities Digestive as easily. Check out our pictures:
Last year we entered the RDS Primary Science Fair held in Limerick with a brand new project entitled 'How do fidgeting and doodling affect our concentration?'.
On Friday 19th January Ms. Hamilton’s 4th Class had an early and icy start to get to Mary Immaculate College in Limerick for the RDS Primary Science Fair. Our Project ‘How do fidgeting and doodling affect our concentration?’ garnered great interest at the fair.
The memory tests were well received and so many children and adults carried out the experiment on the day that we ran out of worksheets! It was a great experience to display and explain our project and to also see all the great workshops and other projects at the Fair. The judges were very impressed with our project and commented on the variety of skills learned from planning to designing and making and analysing our results using maths.
Our results showed that most children (54%) from 2nd-6th Classes in Ballygarvan NS concentrated better while fidgeting. Girls were better at concentrating while fidgeting than boys. Most people in our school found it difficult to concentrate while doodling and did not improve their results while doodling. Check out the photos from the day below.
The previous year's entry was: 'Can we identify our family smell?'. We displayed our project in the hall and received very positive feedback from the judges and public alike.
Loads of people tried our experiment at the stand, even the rugby pundit George Hook had a go with his 'very expensive jacket'!! We also attended lots of fun workshops and informative lectures on the day. It was great fun and all the hard work paid off.
4th Class Science