Category: STEM

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Generation Science visit with Lego Mindstorms

On Monday 13th March we programmed robots when we had a visit from Generation Science for National Science Week.

The robots were made of Lego but they had a device on them. The device was what made the robots do what it was programmed to do, a micro processor. We had to get a computer then make programs on it. We had to add settings on an app on the computer then make it move forward by clicking a arrow facing forward and then add more setting and click on a stop button to make it stop.

Once we made the programs we had to get a cord then plug one end into the computer and the other into the robot. We then had to press a button on the computer to transport the programs onto the robot. Once the robot was programmed you had to take it to a race track to get it tested and if the robot passed the test, you can go onto the next challenge. The next challenge was to make it go forward then go backwards for 3 seconds. We had to make a new setting on the computer which had a backward arrow on it and then make it go backward for 3 seconds by clicking a button and writing 3 seconds down. We then tested it out again on the race track and then we got another challenge.

The challenge was to keep all the program but make it rotate.To do that we added a new setting and put it before the stop setting. we then just put rotate to 75 and then tested it out. For the next challenge we had to remove all our current programs then add new. We had to make it go forward and then dodge barrels then go back on track and make it to the end of the track. It was hard because we could not use any senses so it could not dodge barrels just by seeing the barrels so we had to judge the time it would take to hit the barrels. Not many people made it past the challenge and eventually we had to stop. We then had a few minutes to give our robot some programs and make it dance. We had a robot dance battle  but they were no winners.

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Drone After School Club

  On Monday 13th March we had a drone club after school. Nearly everyone in my class went to the club. The club was for primary 4 – 7. The first thing we had to do was program the drones to make them fly around in a square. We used the Ipad  to program them.   The first time we tested it some groups made it do a flips and turns. Some of the drones wheels that protected us from it even fell of. After that we got a shot of spheros that got controlled on an ipad .  You had a choice of changing its speed or colour . At the end of the club we got to see a very small computer about a half the size of a  remote. Everyone go a shot of tinkering with it.

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A toothrific afternoon!

On Monday, 13th March Mrs Bermingham came in to talk to us about keeping our teeth healthy and cleaning them properly. She talked about all of the good and bad bacteria in our mouths and why it’s important to eat healthy snacks. She also told us that we need to “spit, not rinse!” and Spitty Monkey squirted water at us! She also gave us a Healthy Snack reward chart to make sure we are bringing healthy snacks into school.

By Christopher and the P1-3’s

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The Dream Team Game Design

This term we have been learning about Game Design. We all got into groups which would be our companies. My groups company name was The dream team. There was criteria like,

  • You must all adopt roles.
  • You must create an eye-catching logo.
  • You must create a prototype of your game.
  • You must create a survey and make a graph with your results.
  • You must have a clear plan of your game.
  • You must have a clear, colourful storyboard.
  • You must have a clear background story.
  • You must create colourful characters, settings and objects.
  • You must write instructions that show you how to play the game.
  • You must create an advertising poster that makes someone want to buy your game.
  • You must create a theme tune that sounds good for your game.
  • Everyone must create a pitch to sell our games.

This is one of the members of the group with the storyboard. The Dream Team’s name for their game was Racing Master.

Racing master is a game where you have to race against all the other formula one champions to win the championship. We had two different levels that got harder and harder. As we made our game on Kodu we could only use the characters that are there so on the first level we used a blimp, a jet, a rover and the character you were playing was a rover. In the second level we used three jets and in this level you also played a rover. In the first level there is a race track and you are against your opponents. On the track there is obstacles if you hit into the obstacles you slow down. You also have to try stay on the track because if you go on the grass you will slow down. There is only 2 ways to move to the next level. One way is to beat the characters in the race. The other way is to collect 5points then you can win and move onto the next level. To collect points you can find the hidden coins on the track then you bump into them and it gives you a point.

In level two there are lots of hills and the track is different but you have to follow the same rules and you can win in the same way. You also need to try not to go off the track or bump into the objects and try to collect coins. There was one problem with the characters on the game because they wouldn’t follow the path but we managed to fix it using debugging. We have learned more about game design and solving problems. We used debugging and also tinkering when we were trying to fix the problems. Our logo was a shape with the dream team written inside it and four clouds in the corners of the page. The whole group enjoyed doing this topic and need to work on working in a team.

By Kaitlyn

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Fish Finish Line!

 

Port Ellen Primary Schools Primary 5/6/7 class has been doing game design for their topic. They had to make a game for 7-12 year olds. Then they had to battle all the games in the class.  First they had to assign roles and create a group name.

In my group (Fish Finish Line) I was the Creative Director it is like being the manger and I found being the manager. Aidan was the Marketer that meant he had to find out what other people would want to play/buy.  Aiden was also the Creative Assistant and he had to take over is the Creative Director is he or she was away.

Aiden says” I really enjoyed it because I enjoy doing surveys and collecting information.”

Holly was the Programmer and she had the fun job of programming. Ellie and Matthew shared the job of the Game Designers and they had to do the logo and the story board. Lauren was the Artist and she had to design characters for the game.

We made an IMovie, poster, characters, 4 worlds, theme tune, logo, game summary, story board and a survey. In the end we presented our game to Mr Shakespeare. He judged us on different aspects but we won the best presentation!

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Bird Endeavour

Today wednesday 1st March I got an email from David Wood about my bird Endeavour, he sent me tracks of greenland white fronted geese. That the RSPB track using tags, he sent me the tracks to show me where the greenland white fronted geese migrate to and I found it very interesting, they fly thousands of miles and they all fly in their families.

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Internet Safety

In school with Mr Shakespeare we have been learning about internet safety. He has showed us different websites with fun games to help us. Those games helped us because they had questions about what to do if someone asks you to meet up and other important questions. Mr Shakespeare gave us this site called Thinkuknow and it is really good because it gives you games.The games on that site helps us because they give us three options is you want to delete it, keep it or reply to the message. Mr Shakespeare gave us a book that said all the facts that we need to know about internet safety. There is another site called Scratch and it is really good because you can make up your own quiz. And P567 made a quiz for the P123 in pairs.
Some of the things we have learnt are SMART which is S: Safe, If you are online you should make sure you are playing games you are allowed to play also is you are researching a question you should make sure it is the right thing. M:Meeting, If you are online and you get a message from someone you don’t know saying do you want to meet up tomorrow at lunch time? You say no because they could say they are 12 years old but they are actually 45 years old. Also is you get a really nice message you should know the person before you meet up but first you should check with an adult. A:Accepting, if you are on E-mail and you get a message from someone you don’t know and the send you a message which has a link but the do not mention the link in the message you should not open it because it could give your device a virus. R:Reliable, Reliable is when you are on the internet researching and you go a website that doesn’t sound very true so it wouldn’t be a very reliable website. A reliable website would be Wikipedia. T:Tell, Tell is if you get a nasty message don’t delete it because you could get more mean messages. Instead you should tell an adult you trust.

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My Kodu Endeavor

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At Port Ellen primary school my endeavor is Kodu Gamelab. Kodu is a game to learn the physics of coding however ignoring writing things down like regular coding. You can do all sorts of things like build a world, create objects and robots, create hills and more. You can “program” anything as long as it is a object and make it do almost whatever you want.

For my Kodu endeavor I am doing different levels. For my first level I made a time challenge. You have three minutes to either do a hard jumping challenge or to do a race. when you complete a challenge you will be transported to the next level. In the 2nd level there will be 11 trees. 10 trees will give you a game over but 1 tree will transport you to the next level. In the next level there is a maze where there are 5 red apples and 5 black apples. The black apples give you minus 10 points but red will give you plus 10 points. Getting minus points will result in game over however getting 50 points will give you a win.

For my 4th level (which is still in development) I am making a space invaders game.  There will be a light spawning in stars which will shoot at you and if you run out of health you lose. If you destroy a certain amount of stars you will win. For the 5th level I am thinking of doing a plat former level where you have to jump on blocks and try to reach the top while trying to beat a computer controlled robot which is also going to the top.

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Game design

P5/6/7 have been doing a topic on game design using Kodu which is an app you can get on a computer. We have been learning how to program so that we can make games and learn everything that you can do on Kodu. You can make your character shoot and many other things. I think it is amazing because you can program your character to do just about everything. You can add hills and even make your land be flooded with huge waves and there is a lot more things you can add to your world. There is a lot of different patterns you can do with Kodu to program him. We have made lots of progress through our learning in Kodu but we  have also had lots of fun through playing Kodu.     By Holly and Ciaran

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My Place Photography Competition

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On Monday 20th February primary 5/6/7 had to guess who won the My Place Photography Competition

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and Mrs Clark said that there was a winner and a runner up in the class. So we went through all the photos and Mrs Clark told us if we were right or wrong. We were told that the runner up was Ruaraidh MacDonald and the winner was Matthew Campbell. They were absolutely shocked and they were very happy and exited. On the 22nd March they will go to Glasgow and get presented to and interviewed by the press. Our photos will be blown up and put with all of the other winners and runner ups. They will get to see a private viewing of all the winners and runner ups from the past years. Then they will go back to Islay that night and they will tell their school the next day when they go back in.

 

 

 

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Green Flag Renewal

images               We are very happy to have had our Green Flag renewed again.  Here is what the report said –

Congratulations to everyone in Port Ellen for a great whole-school effort in renewing the school’s Green Flag status. I thought your photographs showcased well all the great environmental work going on in school and it was clear that everyone had been working hard to reduce waste, encourage healthy lifestyle choices and re-develop your grounds as a marvellous resource for learning and recreation and a haven for wildlife. In so doing, you have monitored progress well, shared your successes with the wider community via your blogs and Twitter feed, and worked collaboratively with helpful partners such as Rejig, the RSPB, the Community Garden and your local plant supplier and boat builder. Eco is well- integrated into the curriculum and calendar via classwork such as your Water Cycle topic and events like your Waste and Walk to School Weeks, and you have enjoyed well-deserved success in the STEM Challenge, the Junior Saltire Award and the Pocket Picnic Garden Competition. Finally, you are to be warmly commended for your beach cleaning activities, your promotion of Fairtrade in school and your generous support of worthwhile charities such as Water Aid. Your young people are truly responsible, global citizens and I am sure you will enjoy exploring the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as part of your ongoing Eco focus.

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Earthquake-proof

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To complete our IDL on earthquakes and volcanoes, P4/5 have learned about the pros and cons of living in areas of the world where there are volcanoes and earthquakes.  They wrote a piece of persuasive writing to convince people that living in Iceland had lots of positive aspects and found out how engineers try to make buildings earthquake-proof.  The children worked in co-operative groups to build earthquake-proof buildings and then we tested them using a huge tray of jelly to be the shaking ground!

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Science Club

SCIENCE-BIOLOGY

On every Wednesday at school we have a science club. science club and at science club. At the first week of science club we had to find out who put a white powder in Mrs. Clark’s hot chocolate. It was great fun. We had to find it by going to different parts of the kitchen and finding out who’s mark matches the criminals mark. There was finger prints, bites on cups and we had to see what what pen was the same as the one the criminal used. The second week we got to make crystals. We made the crystals by putting in over salted water and food coloring to make them look good. On the last week of science club it was really disgusting because we were dissecting a fish and at the very end we dissected a deer heart. Although earlier before we were naming body parts and we got 2 chocolates out of an advent calender. We would like to thank the people from the high school  for coming over to help us and we would really like it if science club is on again.

By Rebecca and Rowan

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PPPS CHRISTMAS FAIR

img_1711The PPPS which are Matthew, Aaron, Abi, Rowan, Sophie and Kaitlyn are making crafts for Port Ellen’s Christmas fair. We made lots of items and it only took two days to make everything. We made tin cans, star mirrors, taguls and finger puppet nativities. The star mirrors are £1:50 there are 7 of them. The nativity is £2:00 and there is 5 sets of them. The taguls are £1:00 and there are 8 of them. The star mirrors are £1:50 and there are 7 of them. The tin cans are 50p and there 6 of them.  We had to create balance sheets and work out unit costs to be able to price our items, to make sure we make a profit.

by the Pretty Presents Perfect Service

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Rionnag

Rionnag is a enterprise that will be selling there crafts at the port Ellen primary school Christmas fair on Saturday 8th December.We will be selling sock Olaf’s,Christmas magnets and lemon and sherbet cupcake the Olaf’s are £3.00 the magnets are 30p 4 for £1.We only have 6 Olafs  and there going sell out fast because every one loves Olafs. We have 38 magnets. We want to get a profit not a loss.Ee hope we get lots of money.

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Crazy Claus Christmas fair

photo-on-08-12-2016-at-14-48We have been making things for the Christmas fair. We have made tiles with a map of Islay on it, we have made rainbow coloured Christmas baubles with sparkles and we have made snow globes. We have made a book on an app called book creator on the ipads with the Christmas fair notes on it. We also designed a cupcake for the cupcake competition. We made crunchie flavoured red cupcakes with a Santa hat on them. We have been learning how to make a balance sheet and how to make a chart on excel and we also did market research for the project.  I hope everything sells really well.

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Our Trip To The Woods

img_1124On Wednesday 5th October, P5/6/7 from Port Ellen Primary School went to Cairnmore woods to live in Mesolithic times. At school we all have four clans, The Golden Eagle Clan, The Arctic Fox Clan, The Orca Clan and the Red Deer Clan. In our clans we got given a leaf and we had to find out what tree the leaf came from and then when we were at the woods we had to find a tree in our clans that aaas the same tree as the leaf. We then made a den at the woods. We made a model of a village for our clan and an actual den. The Golden Eagle clan had a beach tree. The img_0626Arctic Fox clan had a sycamore tree. The Orca clan had an oak tree and The Red Deer clan had the ash tree. The Golden Eagle Clan had a tree and they made their den under it and made the model outside. They also had a spy hole where they could see the Orca clan who had a mud trap near them. The Arctic Fox Clan’s base was a fallen over tree that we could get over to get to our den but the rest of our base had a massive mud pile in and we used some of the mud to make our mini village. We did a hunt for sweets, this was to improve our hunter gathering skills. The Orca clan got the most sweets. We also made clay tree spirits to leave guarding our dens.  We had really good fun. We learned to observe objects better than we did before. We hope to go back soon.

 

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Making a Fire and Gutting Fish

img_0265 On Wednesday 5th October p5,6,7 went on a trip to the woods.  After we had made our dens and completed some challenges we went to have our lunch near the beach.   When we went to the beach Mr Gairns had set up a fire for us to have our lunch round, and we had brought firewood from the woods to put on our fire.  When we had finished all our lunch some of us went to gut some trout so we could put it on the fire to cook and we also got to roast home grown apples as well.  We put the trout and apples on sticks to cook them and when they were cooked they tasted delicious.  We also got to try other Mesolithic foods for our lunch, cockles and nuts.  Not many people liked the cockles but we did like the trout and apples.  It was interesting to see what food would have been like in Mesolithic times.

 

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Stirling University

On Thursday 15th September p6/7 from all the schools from Islay and Jura went to Stirling University and while we were there we got to dissect fish. When we were dissecting  the fish I was working with Rowan and we were testing to check the bacteria in the kidney but first me and Rowan had to push away a bubble that was protecting the kidney. After we pushed away the bubble we stuck a plastic stick in the kidney to get a sample of blood to rub it on a petri plate so that when they take it out a warm fridge they would be able to see the bacteria that was in  the fish’s kidney. After we dissected the fish we did a quiz that had nine questions in it and me and Rowan got 7 questions correct and two questions incorrect. When we got back outside we all got tour of the university and we even got to see what the rooms would look like.  After the tour we headed back to the youth hostel.

By Rebecca Morris

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Blair Drumming Safari Park

Most of P6/7 from Islay and Jura went on the Stirling trip on the 13th till the 16th of September.

One of my favourite parts was going to Blair Drummond Safari Park so that’s what I’m writing about today.

Me and my group  (Mrs Mactaggert, Anna, Lorne, Ewan, Toby, Daisy, Ryan and Sam) started of at at the Elephant (Mondy) and it was very interesting then we went into the Rhino section. Bruce the Rhino’s Mum Dot was pregnant with her fourth calf. We also looked at giraffes  but they were quite boring because they were just standing there.  After that we went to look at the lions and we saw a male lion eating a calf. Then we headed to the horses and the two tigers. After we got to go see penguins, meercats and sealions. Next we went to the park and played with the amazing, gigantic wooden castle. Soon after we drove through the all the animals in the car my favourite animal I saw in the car was the zebra. But sadly after we had to leave to get to the ferry.

By Eva Munro

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Forth Road Bridge

Today Ellie, Kaitlyn and Sarah found out about the Forth Road Bridge because their class are going to Stirling for an annual school trip. They will be visiting Bannockburn, The Forth Road Bridge, Stirling castle and Stirling university. We found out that over 70,000 vehicles cross the bridge every day and over 24 million vehicles cross the bridge every year. It took around 6 years to build and seven people died building it. On the 5th December 2015 a small 2cm crack was found and the bridge had to be rebuilt. The bridge is 51 years old. It is owned and operated by Network Rail. It is the 4th longest bridge in the world. It is over the fifth of the forth. It cost about £19.5 million. It is Britians first all steel bridge. It used nearly 40,000 tonnes of steel and 125,000 cubic metres of concrete. The designers were Benjamin Baker and John Fowler. They will be visiting it next week, hope they have a great time. By Kaitlyn, Sarah and Ellie<img

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P5/6/7s Maths Challange

P5/6/7 in Islay Primary School have entered the Mathematical challange for 2016-2017 the p5 have been finding it challing to do the maths for the challange this year and next year. Only some of the p5s have completed the first questions on the paper. P6/7 are a little bit more confident than p5s and most of them done it last year.

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Our Trip To Stirling University

As a student you get to choose your own subjects. You get set essays on a set time.You can also do courses. You also get to meet new people that will be you friends forever. They have a major sports program.

Advantages – You get a student discount. You get Christmas, Easter and the Summer off. You get a University flat. When you graduate you get to go to the grad ball and get pritty pictures. You are close to the cinama and yummy restrants and a very good swimming pool and gym.

My Aunty (Shona Isla) studeyed Animal Biology and very recently gratuated. Her friends still come to visit with  there parents.

By Eva Munro

 

Stirling University stands with rich and varied history. The estate was bought by John Hope in 1678 then it was passed over to Ralph Dundas whose son was John Dundas.

By Ruaraidh

A team from Stirling Universaty went to Rio 2016 they got to go on Tv.

Some people from Stirling Unaversaty is part of team Gb

The are four swimmers from team GB which was taught by Stirling University. They also do golf . They also do running, football, rugby and many more.

By Darren

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