Crumlin National School

Fantastic News!

Crumlin N.S. have been successful in receiving the Science Foundation Ireland Discover Science and Maths Award for 2018. Our plaque was delivered earlier this week. Big thanks to all our little scientists and wonderful parents who helped us in organising various science, technology and maths activities both inside and outside the school. The pupils had a great year with all their extra days out, school visitors and workshops. Well done C.N.S!

Third and fourth class had lots of fun designing parachutes when we learned about gravity. We carefully chose and measured suitable materials. We made parachutes for Lego figures. All of our parachutes succeeded in slowing down the Lego figure as it fell.

We refined our designs and tested different materials and different sizes against each other. We discovered that the best material was black plastic bin bags; the bigger the better!

Last Friday, Junior Infants were very busy designing and making rockets. They constructed them from different materials such as insulating pipe covers, card, duct tape and elastics. They also decorated them with colourful stickers. They had great fun launching the rockets in the front yard from both their hands and a metre stick. Older classes were invited outside to view the blast off! We then had a competition to see who’s rocket traveled the furthest and measured the distance using strides. Our scientific work even made our News Copies!

5th & 6th were learning about the Moon in Science and the effect of gravity in Space. We looked at the Mars lander and how space crafts need to have a soft landing on the moon. 5th & 6th were then tasked with designing a landing craft for raw eggs that were dropped from a metre above their table. We had some very inventive creations made from cotton wool, string, straws, tin foil, sellotape and lollipop sticks. They had great fun and 4 out of 12 eggs survived!! We invited the younger classes in to see our gravity testing eggs.

2nd and 3rd Class have been programming over  the previous few weeks learning lots of new scripts in Scratch….

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This week, 2nd Class discovered that objects that are less dense float, whilst objects that are more dense sink. They also designed a boat from plasticine that was able to carry passengers (paper clips).

Last Week, 2nd and 3rd Class designed Land Yachts that were powered by wind energy. We had lots of fun choosing our materials, creating our design and making our Land Yachts. We encountered some problems along the way but we overcame them by testing them and in the end we had a race. We measured how far the Land Yachts traveled under the fair test of equal time to each team. After the race, we decided what went well and if we were to design them again, what would we do differently.

5th and 6th had a wonderful opportunity last week to visit Valeo in Tuam where they learned a vast amount on the work they do in Valeo. They learned all about different types of cameras used in cars, autonomous cars, the future of automobiles and even got to see and sit in an autonomous car used in Valeo for testing. Thanks to Stephanie, John and Paul at Valeo for an extremely informative and enjoyable visit.

A huge thank you to Dave Ryan and his colleagues Maeve & Rebecca from S.A.P. who came to school today and spoke about Computer Science & Design Process to the children. 3rd & 4th class created remote control cars. 5th & 6th worked in teams to design and create bridges made from just straws and sellotape. It was thoroughly enjoyed by all and showcased the skills and thought processes needed for differing careers.

On the 25th of September, pupils from 3rd, 4th and 5th  were accompanied by SISK engineers Noel Curtis and Alan Mullane on to the new Tuam-Gort Motorway. The engineers gave the children a brief explanation of what their job involves. The children were then shown the largest roundabout in Ireland, SOS telephones, road signage, rumble strips, water run -off areas and what materials were used in constructing the new road. Many thanks to SISK for this opportunity.