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Category Archives: News
Partial Eclipse
British Science Week
Steve Owens, ‘The Dark Sky Man’ visited St Mark’s last week to speak to the Primary 4-7 children about the solar eclipse. He told them what to expect, how best to view it safely and chatted about space. It was fascinating for the children to meet a real life stargazer!
British Science Week 2015
Pupil Group Meetings
Recent minutes for the pupil literacy group have been added. Follow the link to view.
Clyde in the Classroom 2015
Primary 6a are participating in Clyde in the Classroom. It is a hands-on project which uses the life history of a native Scottish species, the brown trout, to promote awareness of river ecology among young people across the River Clyde catchment. Over the next seven weeks, P6 will engage with nature and develop a sense of pride in their local environment. The children will be responsible for the care of brown trout within their classroom and will work weekly with Clyde River Foundation scientists. The twin outcomes of developing citizenship and personal confidence will be illustrated by their personal and group work. Yesterday, P6a visited the Science Centre in preparation for the project. They also had time to explore the Science mall. You can read P6’s Blog on the trip by following the link.
Financial Education Week
Last week we had a very successful Financial Education Week in St. Mark’s. The aim of Financial Education Week is to develop financial understanding in ensuring that young people leaving school have the skills required to deal confidently with everyday financial issues.
Children throughout the school worked on a variety of activities. Brandon, Sophie, Bethany, Noah, Mehraan, Charis, Anya and Joseph from the upper school, delivered lessons on the history of money, and showed the children throughout the school, how to make their own banknotes.
Pupils were also delighted to have the chance to touch £500 worth of shredded banknotes.
As in previous years, parents and carers generously gave up their time to talk to pupils. We would particularly like to thank, Mr Skinner, Mrs Connolly and Mrs Amereh , who came in to talk about the importance of budgeting in their jobs.
Pupils in Primary 3 had a visit from staff and pupils from St. Luke’s, who delivered a lesson on money and who, much to the delight of the children, came bearing gifts of pencils and notebooks for each child.
Children’s Liturgy Nativity Play
The St John’s Parish Children’s Liturgy group will present their Nativity performance at 6.30 pm on Christmas Eve before the vigil mass . Rehearsals will begin on Sunday, 23rd November. Children of Primary school age who would like to participate should meet in front of the altar after 10 am mass each Sunday from now until Christmas. The practices will last approximately 20 minutes. We need plenty of sheep, shepherds and angels in addition to the main characters! Please encourage your child to join us as part of their faith journey.
National Science and Engineering Week
Primary 2a and P2b joined Generation Science for their workshop Day or Night. P2 discovered why we go to bed when it is dark and also why it gets dark in different parts of the world at different times.
Clyde in the Classroom
Blog 7
On Tuesday 11 March we released our trout into the wild. In the morning we carried out our final checks. We made sure that all classes who wanted to had seen the trout before they left. We then visited as a class and got our photos taken beside the hatchery. Sadly, another two trout had died, which took our total to 30 dead eggs/alevin. That meant we were releasing approximately 170 trout.
During our lunchtime, Caroline captured our trout and put around 5 trout into each tub for us to release. When we arrived back from our lunch she was waiting for us in the classroom. At this point some of us started to feel quite sad and emotional because we would no longer be able to look after our trout. We would miss following the rota to see what duties needed to be performed. We also felt quite excited because we were finally releasing our trout – what we had been working towards for five weeks.
It was a beautiful sunny day and we walked to the ABC park. It was lovely to see so many of our parents and carers waiting for us at the park. Caroline helped us to get into groups of three and the first group was called forward to release their trout. If we were wearing wellies we could stand in the burn. We then had to open our tubs and gently put the tubs into the water. We then tipped the tubs slightly which allowed the waters to mix and many of our trout disappeared very quickly. A few of us were lucky enough to see our trout swim off but many were just too quick for us!
We have really loved this topic and will be sharing our thoughts with the rest of our school. We would also like to share our work with other schools who have not yet been involved in this topic. We really hope to do something similar to this again.
Calls of the Wild
Calls of the wild gives anyone and everyone an opportunity to take part in important scientific research at home, school or even on the move on their mobile. This fun online activity takes 5-10 minutes and is a great way to get involved with real science.
Calls of the wild was first run for National Science & Engineering Week 2013. Working with researchers at the University of Surrey and the University of Salford, the study aimed to gain a deeper understanding into the emotions evoked by certain natural sounds.
National Science and Engineering Week
Wildlife education charity Wildscreen has created a new online educational game, Team Wild, for National Science & Engineering Week. The game offers young people aged 7 to 14 a fun opportunity to find out about science careers.
Team wild highlights some of the lesser-known science careers and inspiring the next generation of science superheroes and environmental stewards.
From jungle to savanna, rainforest to coral reef, the Team WILD game will turn students into science superheroes by developing their speed, skill and coordination.
As they play, students will discover a diverse range of field tasks a conservation scientist or ecologist must do in order to protect the world’s species and habitats and will unlock exclusive videos to hear from leading conservationists about what careers in the natural world involve.
National Science and Engineering Week
To kick off National Science and Engineering Week, P3a,P3b, P4 and P4/5 took part in the Generation Science Good Vibrations workshop. During the workshop we learned that sound is made by particles vibrating in the air. We learned that sound can travel through solids, liquids and air and that the pitch of sound depends on how quickly the particles are vibrating. We used lots of unusual instruments to make sounds and we finished our workshop by making a class rap! Please ask us what else we know about making sounds and we can whisper or shout our knowledge to you.
Clyde in the Classroom
Blog 6
Our trout are still developing well and they are growing daily. We can see their eyes properly and their yolk sac has now disappeared. This tells us that they are now ready to be released and begin hunting for their own food. We are feeling quite nervous about this and we hope they will survive in the wild.
Over the weekend some more of our trout were leaving the tank to swim about the area at the top. Sadly this resulted in five of our fish dying. However, we are very pleased that so many have survived. So far we have removed 30 dead eggs or alevin over five weeks. Caroline predicted that we would lose up to 5 each day initially, with probably 100 eggs/alevin dying. We are delighted to be releasing approximately 170 alevin later on today. This is a result of us being extremely careful and checking and monitoring our eggs very carefully. Our four times daily checks were very worthwhile.
Yesterday we invited the children from each class to visit the trout and to see their progress firsthand. All of the children enjoyed this and many of them were able to ask us questions about the progress we’ve been making.
Later on today we are visiting the ABC park in Barrhead to release our trout. We are feeling a little upset because we will really miss the trout and our daily visits to them. We are also quite excited as we will see them swim off to start a new chapter in their lives. We hope that they will all thrive in the next stages of their life cycle.
Clyde in the Classroom
Blog 6
5 March 2014
Recently we have been discovering many changes to our trout. The yolk sac has almost disappeared and the alevin are getting bigger each day. The colour is now dark brown and they have a more “fish-like” appearance. When we visit each day the fish are starting to move much closer to the top of the tank – some of them are even jumping!
Over the weekend, two fish managed to escape from the tank and were found swimming around the top of the two tanks. Fortunately some water had been spilled so they were able to survive. It was very surprising and little bit funny. To say that we were shocked was an understatement. We were even more surprised when two more fish did this again on Monday night. We realised that the tank was too full and had to remove nearly 22 cups of water from the fish tank.
Yesterday we invited our parents and carers into the classroom for a short presentation. We prepared a slideshow for the parents, including lots of information and photographs of all that we have been doing over the last four weeks. Our parents were extremely interested in all we had to say and were asking us questions, all of which we could answer successfully.
The final part of this day included inviting our parents/carers into the P Pod to see our fish and discuss the progress they have made. We were extremely proud of ourselves and were true ambassadors for St Mark’s.
We are now excitedly waitng for the day we release the trout. Caroline will be accompanying us to the ABC park in Barrhead on Tuesday 11 March, where we will all be involved in the release of the fish! Look out for our next update and many more photographs.
Chick,Chick,Chick, Chick, Chicken!
Primary 6/7 were excited to meet new additions to the St Luke’s family on Tuesday afternoon.
S1s received 10 living eggs at the start of last week which have now all successfully hatched. They are now the proud parents of 10 healthy (fluffy) newborn chicks. S1 pupils will take care of them and monitor their development over the next few days. Staff from the science department brought down the chicks to meet P7 as part of the transition programme from primary to secondary.
Clyde in the Classroom
Blog 5
25th February 2014
Today we were visited by Mr Orr, who was able to demonstrate the gutting and filleting of a fish for us. We were a little anxious at first but from the pictures taken you will see we were all quite fascinated. Mr Orr was very knowledgeable and was able to answer all of the questions we had for him.
We saw the internal organs, including the heart during this process. There was only a small amount of blood, much less than we had expected. We were able to see the liver, lungs and the brain. We also examined the eye ball at Chloe’s request!!!!
We loved the experience and are very grateful to Mr Orr for showing us so much – we would do it again!
Primary 6
Clyde in the Classroom
Blog 4
24th February 2014
Every week we are noticing more and more changes. Our trout now swim much more and are approaching the top of our tank when we are visiting. They are much more active and their colouring is darkening daily. They have grown in size and we love checking on them after the weekend – we notice lots then.
We have included some pictures of us caring for the trout. You will see us checking the water temperature and adding some iced water bottles to the tank. We will also be topping up the water into each tank, using the chlorine free water we’ve been preparing in our buckets.
You will also see a close up picture of our ALEVIN – shortly they will become FRY.
We’ve been given an estimated date of release for 10 March and are really looking forward to this step. Our parents and carers have been invited into our class on 4 March when will be reporting all that has happened since our project began. We are really looking forward to sharing our enthusiasm with them.
Clyde in the Classroom, P6
Blog 3
18th February 2014
Lots to update you on! Our eggs have finally started to hatch and the official name we now give them is ALEVIN. The trout are now able to swim around the tank and they respond to loud noises. They have changed colour from orange to brown. To survive they will continue to feed from their yolk sac. Their faces are starting to appear and we have noticed their eyes too. They still huddle together quite a lot, and they are all very protective of each other. They make it very difficult for us when we try to remove a dead egg or alevin.
We love that they seem more confident as they swim around when we are visiting them. We have had to add small pieces of netting over the taps to prevent the trout from swimming into the cooling tank.
Tomorrow we hope to be given an idea of a date for release from Caroline. We will then plan to invite our parents and carers in to see the project first hand.
Whale Week, P5a and P5b
Primary 5a and 5b’s novel study this term is Michael Morpurgo’s ‘This Morning I met a Whale’. As part of the topic both classes decided to host ‘Whale Week’ to raise funds for a visit to Deep Sea World. Through a variety of enterprise activities the classes managed to raise an astonishing £732.79. Activities included a sponsored dance, selling sea snacks, an acrostic poem competition and lots more.
Thank you very much to pupils, parents and carers for your support. Sea World here we come!
Orca, Competition winner.
Dolphin, Raffle Winner
