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/
by Ruaraidh and Matthew
On the 22nd of March, everyone in Port Ellen Primary School was excited to be showing our STEM learning to the Education Scotland visitors that had came to Port Ellen for the Scottish Education awards. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.
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.
In the afternoon of Wednesday 15th March all the P7s of Islay and Jura all learned about chemical reactions. The chemical reactions that Mrs Moran talked about are; change of colour, appearance of a solid, different temperature- hot or cold, bubbles, sound and it might move around the water. All the P7 went to do science to see what the High School is like and what the science class is like. We learned that if you sprinkle little bits of iron over a flame of fire it will look like sparklers.
P4/5 have been learning about forces for science week. They have also been using science skills like how to test fairly. They tested to find out how the difference in force they applied had bigger and smaller impacts on what they were moving. They measured what they were doing in newtons and the testing was fair and accurate. They built rockets to test which would travel the furthest. They felt that the bigger force would have a better impact because it would make the rocket go further and faster.
They also did an experiment on how far a small car could travel. They had a chair and they had a elastic band. They put the elastic band round the chair legs and then one of them pulled the band back and then the other person put the car in front of the band and then the other person the band go and it shot the car forward. Then they marked down what distance the car had traveled. They then used smaller and bigger pulls on the elastic band to see if the distance would change. They learned how changing the size of a force could change the motion of what they were testing.
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.
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 p5/6/7 had a game design competition. There were four groups The pink tree trackers, The dream team, MCG gaming and The fish finish line. My group was the pink tree trackers. In our group we had our own roles, these were the roles:
My Endeavour is Deforestation and its involved in science because I’m going to see how animals survive in those conditions and see how people can stop deforestation such as using smartphone detectors that detect saws and they send a alarm to a ranger the ranger comes and stops the person who is cutting down the tree. The science is about nature and the protection of trees. In this I mostly feel happy because I am focused and calm but usually pictures don’t work and that makes me a bit angry.
For My Endeavour I’m doing birds. I have been learning about their migration, where they go to, how long it takes them to get there, what they do on their journey. I have also bean learning about a lot about garden birds. I have learned about the robin, great tit and blue tit, I will be learning about other birds.
On 1Oth of March Port Ellen Primary School went to the Mactaggart Leisure Center to have their Swimming Gala! They will be counting up points and at the end there will be a winning house. If you come first you will get 100 points, if you come second you get 75 points and third gets you 50 points.
