STEM – Our Learning Blog

June 27, 2018

Rolls-Royce Look Back

This year Port Ellen Primary School have been in the finals of the Rolls-Royce science prize and we have had the BBC in to film us with all of our engineering that we have done over the past year. We also have a mentor called Neil Chattle and he has helped us all through the year.

Four people from this school went to the Celebration of science in Glasgow with their wind turbine and did very well. We also had a finalist in the younf Imagineers comptition and took part in the BP Stem Challenge. We have learned lots about renewables and engineering and are know much better at engineering. It has been a very successful project and I now want to be a civil engineer.

Matthew

April 19, 2018

Port Ellen Egg Science!

This week the whole of Port Ellen Primary school have been testing Newtons 3 laws of motion with eggs!

The rules work as you have to protect your egg from breaking using resources provided, you have to make 2 things to hold your egg but 1 has to have a parachute and 1 doesn’t and there is prizes for the lightest, the egg that is least damaged and the one that looked the nicest.

We dropped the eggs from a height (The top of our stairs.) Then it will go at a high speed then splat on the floor. This is Newtons first law, The law of Inertia a object (The egg) will stay in motion still unless it is acted upon, the act is the floor the thing thats going to stop the egg so the egg falls down then hits the ground.

Newtons second law F=MA which stands for force= mass acceleration, This one was the most important this was to slow down your craft before hitting the ground using… Parachutes! For the parachutes there is only a few things 1. the bigger the better, 2. don’t make it to big it gets stuck on the stairs and 3. make it out of something light not like card so we used bin bags!

Newtons 3rd law for every action there is a opposite reaction. The egg is falling then it hits the ground the action the reaction the egg goes splat.

The eggs experiment was a great way to test Newtons laws of motion. It wasn’t just a way of testing Newtons laws but every body loved creating there own special device to keep the egg safe it was like a baby and you can’t drop the baby unless you are 5 metres high and it has a parachute.

March 16, 2018March 29, 2018

P6 Engineering At The High School

On the 14th March the Primary 6’s from all over the island came to the high school for an engineering day. The P7s also came. Everyone got put into groups of three by Mrs Harrison. The first one was about a roller coaster, you had to make a marble get into a cup with some type of dip or loop. Most people were successful but some weren’t. The second challenge was to put your table at an angle using bricks. You had to try and make youre marble take ten seconds to go down a table. Some people added zig zags and peices of paper to try and slow down the marble. Overall the day was good and I would go back.

March 15, 2018March 29, 2018

P7 Science Trip To I.H.S

On Wednesday 14th March P6/7 went to I.H.S. P6 did engineering and P7 did science. All of the primary schools from all around the island came. We did this because it would give us a chance to see what the classes are like in the high school, meet new friends from different schools and do science. The P7’s got split up into 3 groups and first of all my group was with Mrs McNaughton. When we were there we got a paper boat and filled it with boiling water and put it in a paper boat a checked the temperature. Then we got clay shapes and checked which shape would go to the bottom of the glue first and we found out that the sphere went down the fastest. The next class we went to was Mr Kitching’s class and there we were looking at crystals through a microscope. After that we went to Mrs Moran’s class and there we were doing experiments and saying whether the things we were doing were exothermic or endothermic. Overall I think that the day was fantastic and I would definitely go again.

By Rebecca Morris

March 9, 2018March 9, 2018

Engineering Art

Today on Friday 9th March Port Ellen Primary School had Elaine Johnston come and help the whole school create art. Primary 6/7 did an engineering abstract picture where we drew things that related to engineering like screws, cables and cogs. We used the art Eduardo Paolozzi as an inspiration for our work. We then had to paint them in only black, white and yellow we were allowed to mix the colours together. Once the paint had dried we outlined the picture in black and used metallic pens to add effect and texture to our pictures. It was a lot of fun and we would like to say thank you to her for helping us. The pictures will be on display for our year of engineering.

January 27, 2018June 27, 2018

Energy

What is energy? Energy is a source of power that can’t be created or destroyed but can be in the form of electricity. Different types of energy; potential, kinetic, solar, sun, light, wind, heat, sound and more. How is energy a danger for the world? For several reason energy is a danger for the environment, because it is using a lot of the worlds resources. All over the world things like trees are being cut down and even destroyed just to be used for fires. Another reason why energy is bad for the environment is because of overheating. So many farmers are growing their crops in greenhouse with a lot of heat and light because where they are it is to rainy or sunny to grow the crops they want. So they are producing alot of CO2 into the atmosphere which is leading to over heating, temperature rise and climate change to the world. so by using less energy, reusable energy or green energy then we will have a trouble free world.

January 22, 2018March 22, 2018

Antarctica Animation

Connor from P3 and Lomond from P2 built an animation set, and then created their own animation to show what they had learned in their topic looking at Climate Change and its effects. A brilliant video, boys, well done!

January 9, 2018

Tidal Energy Sway

December 13, 2017

Biomass a Renewable energy source.

Biomass is a Renewable energy source it is also short for biological material. Biomass creates heat and energy. The energy it contains is from the sun. Biomass is created by burning things like some crops, types of rubbish, manure, scrap and lumber forest in a boiler. The most common types of Biomass boilers are hot water boilers and steam boilers. Co-firing biomass with coal is a very effective way of using biomass for energy. Biomass is the only renewable energy source that can be converted into liquid. The countries that use Biomass the most are Sweden, Austria, and the United states of America

November 20, 2017November 20, 2017

Imagineers Presentation London Trip

On Saturday 18th November I went to London as a finalist for the Tomorrows Engineer competition. In the competition there were 10 finalists from all around the UK. All the finalists had to meet up in the Science Museum to present their invention in front of 4 judges and the audience. We had professional posters made to show our inventions. My invention was the Scaredy Sheep, a device that would bark like a dog and is attached to the sheeps ear so when sheep get stuck on their backs they are scared into jumping up again.

When the finalists first arrived we went down into a room where the judges were and we got to talk to them and the host so we weren’t as scared to talk about our inventions in front of them. We also had to get head sets on so we could do a sound check. After the break we all went down and sat down. The first thing that happened was a balloon experiment and a bubble experiment. In the bubble experiment a lady got bubble mixture and big bubble stick. Another lady came out and got another bubble stick and each side of the room did a bubble competition. The balloon experiment was really cool because a lady put a balloon on fire and it made a REALLY loud bang.

Then the first finalists went up to present their ideas. Then we got a quick break to explore the museum. After about 15 minutes we had to go back and on my way in their was a robot called Oscar who walked into me. Oscar was a really cool robot because he speaks to you and hands out chocolates and lollipops. Finally we got into the room and sat down and then there was another quiz. Then it was lunch and after we got to have a quick demonstration on how the body digests food. It wasn’t a good sight at all!

After the disgusting demonstration I had to go up and present my idea. I was nervous but excited and was proud of explaining my invention. Then the judges came out and the host announced the winner, and the winning design was an excellent hover wheelchair. We all congratulated the winner and then we got to explore more of the museum. After a long day I went back to my hotel. I really enjoyed the competition and I would like to be an engineer when I grow up. While I was there I learnt that to complete something you have to stick with it and keep trying.