Ski lift and snowball catapult at winter them STEM Fair

Síofra Grant

Scientific innovative and creativity were evident at Presentation Senior School in Mullingar when pupils presented their STEM Fair for parents and other guests in the school hall.

The great ideas on display followed a winter theme and included working models of ski lifts, candle carousels, and snowball catapults.

Niamh O’Neill, teacher and one of the organisers of the event, explained why science based activities are so important for young students today.

"It’s just to encourage STEM throughout the whole school community. The children have been working in science throughout the year and they are definitely interested in science.

"So this was a school-wide, student-led project, staff involved too, and it gave everybody the challenge to do a winter themed STEM project."

One of the projects was to heat a home sustainably. Model houses with mini heaters were laid out on the table and the insulation used to keep the heat in was visible, demonstrating how the project worked.

One of the students who worked on it, Ana Pop, discussed the experiment. "We made houses for winter to keep them warm, and we came up with light bulbs. We put tinfoil around it, to keep the heat around the house."

Another interesting project, by Zoe and Zara Mavi, and Jordan Rooney, involved building feeders to prevent birds going hungry in the winter, and they will be hung up in the school garden.

"This is so we can help birds out in the winter to get more food easily," explained Jordan. "We built them ourselves and we supplied most of the items ourselves, because this year’s theme was winter and usually in winter the birds barely have any food," added Zoe.

"We painted all of them," Zara, said, and pointed out that they chose duller colours in order to not scare the birds.

Ms O’Neill and other teachers were happy with the work the pupils had put in and the enthusiasm they brought to the project.

"They absolutely loved making the projects, and I’d say a lot of the teachers, their classrooms for the last while have been completely upside down," she joked.

"They brought in a lot of recycled materials and they have been working step by step towards this.

"There’s been art presses open and children pulling out whatever they needed, and then they brought in all their own recycled bits.

"Even just to see them today, there’s so much learning involved in what they did.

"There was lots of teamwork, they had challenges while working together and had to learn to work through them, and then there’s the oral language involved and being able to stand and present and tell somebody else about the project, and that is fantastic."

School principal Claire Dorr was pleased with the students and explained the initiative behind the project. "The children are getting ahead of the Primary Curriculum Framework being embedded by all schools across.

"STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) is one of the newer subjects, so our children are showcasing a final product, but the important part is the planning and design process, which is what’s embedded with STEM."

The event was packed with families of the students, all impressed with the projects.

Ms O’Neill concluded: "I’d say we’re not getting out of it next year!"