office@sjtbb.ie | 061-312 411
office@sjtbb.ie | 061-312 411

Curious Minds Award: Science & Engineering Section

Curious Minds Award: Step 1 & e

Science & Engineering

We are taking part in SFI Curious Minds Silver Award. 

This is a log of activities carried out in our school for Step 1: Science and Step 3: Engineering.

Energy and Forces:

As part of a STEM design and explore lesson about forces, the boys were presented with certain items that they needed to use to explore propulsion.

The items included a toy car, elastic bands, lollipop sticks and paper. 

The aim of the activity was to use the different items to propel the toy car as far as possible. 

The boys used the lollipop sticks and elastic bands to create a catapult. 

Energy and Forces:

Today we created our own boats using recycled and recyclable materials. We first had to explore the materials that we were presented with and predict which one would help keep the boat buoyant. 

We had to plan what materials we would use and how we would use them. Everyone had a different idea on how to build their own boats. Some floated better than others, other sank straight to the bottom of the basin. 

Materials:

Today, we created instruments that would help us clean dirty water and turn it into cleaner water.

We used the following items:

  1. a 2-litre plastic bottle
  2. cotton wool
  3. sellotape
  4. dirty muddy water

We cut the plastic bottle in half and secured the top upside-down to the bottom of the bottle. 

We placed the cotton wool tightly into the cork of the bottle. 

We then placed a large amount of the dirty muddy water into the top of the instrument. 

We left the process of filtration occur throughout the day. At the end of the day we observed the dirty mud that remained at the top of the instrument. The water in the collection area was not fully clean but was much cleaner that it was originally.