Renewables Engineering Islay
Our project for the Rolls-Royce Science Prize aims to build children’s understanding and experience of engineering within the context of renewable energy. Living on a small island means that children have a limited experience of different jobs and we want to promote engineering. We feel that developing Engineering Habits of Mind as a way of tackling problems will not only apply to engineering tasks but many other learning experiences that children encounter. The renewables context for the project comes from our amazing natural environment. Islay is surrounded by sea and subject to regular strong winds. It is home to the Limpet Wave Station – a prototype wave turbine and there are plans to use the strong tidal currents to power an array of underwater turbines in the future. We also have our first community wind turbine.
What is an Engineer?
In this first phase of the project we have tried to establish some baselines so that we can measure the impact of our project at the end of the year. In all classes, children were asked ‘What is an engineer?’ The results of this were fascinating; nearly all of the children in P1/2/3 thought that engineers ‘fixed cars’ while children in P6/7 almost all children saw engineers as wearing hard hats, steel capped boots and having tool belts. Many children also saw engineers as being ‘only boys.’ P6/7 have started to research different fields in engineering such as chemical and biomedical engineering.
Assessing our Engineering Skills.
Since developing Engineering Habits of Mind underpins our project we have used a Do you think like and Engineer? self-assessment tool with children to see how they felt about their skills at the outset. The resource we used was developed by the Royal Academy of Engineering for schools participating in the ‘Thinking like an Engineer’ project during 2014-2016. Staff also decided that we should try and assess the children’s engineering skills in a practical task at the beginning and end of the project – we decided on a bridge to span a 30cm gap and support a plastic cup into which weights would be dropped. This was also the first session where we used the video camera, which made us all nervous! It was interesting to compare notes at the end of the day – almost all children had just gone for a wad of straws taped together with Sellotape. However, one boy in P1/2/3 had visited a bridge and remembered details of how the structure was supported. He then built his bridge single-handedly and put on some railings to stop the cup falling off – this was really unexpected.
In all the classes, staff are talking to the children about engineering and how engineers work and all opportunities are being taken to encourage thinking like engineers. Jo Clark has encouraged P6/7 to create design boards for the Young Imagineers competition run by Statoil. They had to come up with an engineering idea that could solve a problem for the future, and lots of great ideas were generated. 3 were chosen by the class to enter for the competition; Sarah’s Scaredy Sheep device stops sheep getting stuck on their backs by barking like a dog, Rebecca has designed a device that uses static electricity from clothes to repell rain from your glasses and Lauren has invented a device that knows when the inside of your car gets too hot and sends an alarm to your key.
In the Early Learning and Childcare Centre Alison Logan and Katie Bonar have been making the most of their new equipment. The children have been working together to build bridges and ramps, problem solving to make sure that the structures were sufficiently wide and long for everyone to fit across. They have also been problem solving to bail out the boat in the outdoor area. Using lengths of bamboo, they have engineered a solution where bailed water can flow down and be collected at the other end.
Thinking about Energy
The first phase of our project has been Thinking about Energy, how important it is to our lives and how we use it. In P6/7 with Jo Clark, children have been working on a farming topic in which they calculated their own carbon footprint and looked at the carbon footprint involved in food production and transport. They cooked their own low carbon footprint foods for a buffet for pensioners in the local community for Harvest. They have started work on the School’s Carbon footprint and will complete this next term.
Kate Brown’s P4/5 class have been looking at the energy they use in school and at home. The devised questionnaires to find out how many different electrical items children had at home and made tables and graphs to show their results. The class then looked at the energy use of different appliances and were amazed how much energy was used by their showers. Next term they are going to engage with the community to encourage energy saving and will hopefully be getting hold of some energy meters to look more closely at what we use in school.
P1/2/3 with Maggie Harrison have been finding out what makes their toys work. As well as looking at forces they have been finding out about toys that produce movement, sound, light and heat and thinking about how energy is needed to make them go. Linked to their transport topic, they have also thought about what powers different vehicles and designed their own cars and boats. They have started to Think like Engineers, working in teams on engineering challenges.
We have enlisted the help of George Read from the Islay Energy Trust. Our team also includes Maureen MacDonald, Head Teacher. Maureen began her career at Port Ellen as a class teacher, was promoted to Head Teacher in 2008 and in 2016 became shared HT of Port Ellen and Bowmore Primary Schools. Having worked with Education Scotland as an Associate Assessor, Maureen has been a member of various teams engaging in evaluative and professional dialogue. This experience has been invaluable and has influenced practice within the school. Community involvement and parental engagement feature highly in the work that Maureen does. She has conducted the school Gaelic Choir for many years, achieving national success and helping to raise the profile of Port Ellen Primary School. During the October holiday the choir have been competing, and winning, at the National Mod!
Moving forward into the next phase of our project. we are looking forward to our first visit from our mentor, Neil Chattle, just after the October break.
Primary 6&7 have been busy inventing. They have been creating design boards for the Young Imagineers competition run by Statoil. They had to come up with a great engineering idea that could solve a problem for the future, and lots of great ideas were generated; extra robotic arms and hands so you can get more done, high viz vests for cows, smart material kneepads that bounce you back when you fall in the playground, the Scooper for stopping ice cream dripping on your hands and lots more. 3 were chosen by the class to enter for the competition; Sarah’s Scaredy Sheep device stops sheep getting stuck on their backs by barking like a dog, Rebecca has designed a device that uses static electricity from clothes to repell rain from your glasses and Lauren has invented a device that knows when the inside of your car gets too hot and sends an alarm to your key. Good luck in the competition and great engineering!
We have been finding out about different types of engineering. An auto engineer is an engineer that works with vehicles. This job involves working on computers and fixing cars. The average salary is up to £28,000. To be an auto engineer you need to be good at maths and be good at dealing with technology, but most important you have to have good group work to get the job done. You would also have to think about seeing when working with Vehicles. It would also help if you had a degree. I thought that it would be good to be an auto engineer because you always have a task to get done with a team.
We have been learning about Engineering. We have been looking at the Engineering habits of mind here are some and what they mean. Curiosity: asking lots of questions about something. Open- mindedness: showing and telling new ideas. Resilience: don’t give up. Resourcefulness: always organized. Collaboration: able to work in a group. Reflection: look back at your work and rethink your ideas. Visualising: think in your head about what you think your idea is going to turn out like. We have been learning these because the whole schools topic is Engineering. I think that I have learned how to work in a group, how to ask questions, to keep working hard and never give up and how to look back at my work and improve it to make it better. I also learned that Engineers are not just men some engineers are women as well.
As part of our Transport topic, P1/2/3 wanted to find out all about cars, how they worked and what made cars go faster. So they wrote to Dugald McKerral and went on a trip to the garage. They saw a car up on the hydraulic ramp and could see the wheel axels and the chassis that they had learned about in class. Lots of interesting questions were asked and we are going back to class to find out more about pistons. This learning ties in really well with the Rolls-Royce Science Prize.
On Wednesday 8th June, two members of staff and three pupils from Port Ellen Primary flew to Glasgow to attend the Scottish Education Awards. The school had got through to the finals of the Science, Technologies, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Award along with another primary school and a high school. Assessors visited the school back in March to see STEM activities in class, speak to children about their experience of STEM learning and talk to staff about the development of STEM in Port Ellen.
Over the past year all the primary schools on Islay and Jura have been involved in an Island wide history project in conjunction with Islay Heritage and archaeologists from the University of Reading. 
The children have been learning about their history and heritage, as well as the many STEM skills required to be an archaeologist. The results of their learning are now on display in the Gaelic College, Ionad Chaluim Chille Ile, in the Islay and Jura School’s Heritage Exhibition.
The project started with a party from every primary school on Islay visiting the Giant’s Grave site, 90 children in all. This involved a lengthy walk from Nerabus up through the forestry to the site, where the archaeologists were excavating and surveying. The children were then able to experience the different fieldwork techniques, from geophysics to troweling to photography. They learned about life in the early Neolithic period, and discussed with the experts what the grave was for, how it might have looked and how the people at the time lived. They then returned to the classroom to continue the learning, carrying out many different tasks; timelines, brochures, reports, sways, story telling videos, den building, pot making, art and imaginative writing. Some of these can be seen on the 
Then in late March the archaeology team returned for phase 2 of the project, in which schools adopted their own local monument and carried out surveys. Children applied some of their previous learning on Geo-physics and photography, whilst also learning how to make scale drawings and documentaries. They then got to see the results of the survey transferred into 3D representations of the site. Bowmore surveyed Cill a’ Bhulig, the remains of an old chapel, Port Charlotte surveyed Carnduncan, a Bronze Age burial cairn, Port Ellen surveyed Kilbride Chapel and Small Isles and Keills surveyed a crannog at Loch nan Deala.
It has been a great learning experience for all involved and made us grasp just how much fascinating history we pass on Islay everyday without even realizing it. The process of revealing Islay’s past through the use of modern archaeological techniques has been a truly great experience, and the children have a far better understanding of their Island as a result. We would like to thank all those involved for providing us with the experience, including the Mactaggart fund for enabling the project to take place. We hope people will visit the exhibition over the next two weeks for a unique insight into Islay’s past.
worked by sending an electrical current through the ground and if there was a higher reading then there was a rock under the ground this is because it takes more energy to get through the rock. If there was a lower reading that means that there would of been water because it didn’t use lots of energy to get through it. To use the geophysics you would stick both spikes into the ground and wait for a beep then move onto the next spot a certain distance away. We were all glad that people from the University Of Reading to come over and help us as they were very interesting and taught us lots. The data we gathered from the geophysics will actually be used in the final report on the site which is very exciting.
We were also doing archaeology photography with Alex. Before you take the picture you have to remember two things. The first thing to remember is you need to put the measuring stick onto where you are taking a picture of so you have a scale to know how big the things in the photo are, and you have to remember to use the right size measuring stick. The other thing to remember is to put a chalkboard with the sites name, where it is, what it is and what direction it is taken from. You also need to put a north arrow pointing to north. You have to fill in a register after taking a picture. You have to write the site name and the description from the chalkboard, what direction it was from and lots more. This is so that people in the future know what it was about. The site name was KIL17 for Kilbride chapel in 2017. We enjoyed taking accurate photos.
the camera on and you have to make sure that the camera is screwed on properly so it won’t fall off. The archaeologists helped us with all of this. We also made a documentary and it was about what we were doing at Kilbride Chapel and we had to use a radio microphone to record. Showing us how to do things properly is one of the reasons Islay Heritage is so good.
looked really cool and showed us what the chapel looks like-it had really thick walls and was a lot smaller than we thought it would be. We checked our drawing was correct using a GPS positioning pole. We learned lots of new skills and at the end we got to see the results of the geophysics in school and it showed that there might have been an enclosure around the chapel and we were the people who found out that evidence which was very exciting! We then drew pictures of what we thought it might have been like in the past before it fell down.
On the 22nd March 2017 two pupils from Port Ellen Primary School went to the Lighthouse in Glasgow to receive their reward for the My place photography competition run by the Scottish Civic Trust. Those two boys were Matthew Campbell, overall winner in the primary category, and Ruaraidh Macdonald, runnner up. Ruaraidh and Matthew got two canvases, one for the school and one for their family and Matthew also got a camera for himself and for the school. The two of them went up to the front one by one to accept their awards. After the ceremony Matthew had to stay for more photos with the rest of the winners from the My Place Awards and My Place Photography Competition. They both enjoyed the day and were really proud to have done so well in a national competition. To read more go to http://www.scottishcivictrust.org.uk/news/my-place-award-winners-2017/
P4/5 have been investigating 
how craters are made. They thought about the different variables that might change the size of the craters – things like the size of the meteorite, the weight, the shape and even the angle that it hits the surface. Here they are testing out their predictions.
This week, everyone in the school participated in this years Science week. P1/2/3 also took part in this years Science Week. They learned about different forces and they did some experiments to demonstrate how forces work.
forces there. They also looked at our playground toys to find out what forces they used. Then they invited parents in to help make their own play-park 3D models and will test them to see which forces the objects use. The forces that they have been learning were push, pull, twist, air resistance, friction and gravity. Next week, on Wednesday, they will be having a visitor who knows about STEM, and will teach the P1/2/3’s more about forces and things to do with STEM. Robyn, one of the class, said that she would like to do more about science and forces, and the class enjoyed it a lot, even though it is not the end of science week yet. They are eager to learn more and they seem excited to learn more about forces and science. Overall, I think that the P1/2/3 class enjoyed themselves very much, and the experiments with the toys went well, they would love to learn more about STEM and how it works.
about STEM in class. At the high school there was a lot of things to do. My favourite thing to do was Kodu. You got to make your own game and then once you are finished you swapped with the other people in your group. We learned to make our own game on Kodu. In my game you had to dodge all of the hills and try to get to the big castle and if you bumped into the castle you would win but you only have 60 seconds to complete the level and if you don’t get to the castle in that amount of time you would lose. When I was making my game I had to program my character to jump so it would go over the hills and before that I had to program him to move. Before I played the game I thought it would be very easy but when I played the game I thought it was very hard so I had to fix the game. To fix the game I had to put down the hills so people will get to the castle easily. After I fixed the game I could play the game and so could the other people in my group. By Rowan
On the 15 March 2017 all the primary 5/6/7’s from Islay went to the Islay High School to do some STEM which stands for Science Technology Engineering Maths. There was lots of things there like: Minecraft, 3D printer, Spheros, Computational Thinking, Kodu game programing, Micro Bits, Lego We do. My favorite was the spheros because you got to program them. Then we got to drive them round the room and it was really fun because you can change the speed, colour and the direction with an analog stick. I learned from this how to program on a different app on a different device instead of using Kodu or Scratch all the time.
On Wednesday 15th March all the p6\7 from Islay and Jura came to the Islay High School to do technology and science. First we were put into groups with people from other schools. We then got to learn about different technologies. The microbit was hard to use because first you had to program it, then download it, then put onto the microbit. First I made the lights on the middle to say hello. After I did that I made the lights say ‘hi i am a micro chip’. You had to use skills like perseverance a lot for the microbit. At the end Ithought that it was easier than at the start.
On Wednesday the 15th of March P6/7 all over the island went to the high school to do STEM and there were different activities to do.One of the activities was Lego Wedo. What is Lego Wedo? Well Lego Wedo is when you get to make your own robot. There were three different choices and the one I did was like a bumblebee with a long neck. There were other ones to do as well. To build the robot you had to go on an app on the iPad and you chose the robot that you chose of the sheet and then tap on to it and it will come up with the instructions to build your robot.
P6/7 from different schools came as well, like Bowmore, Port Charlotte and Keills. We all got into groups to do different activities. P7 went to do science. We did Chemistry, Physics and also Biology.
On the 15th of March all of the P6/7 on Islay took part in STEM activities. STEM is science, tecnnology, maths and engineering.