This week 10 of our P7 pupils were selected to represent Bubsy Primary at  the Apps for Good Scottish Event in Edinburgh. We were the only primary school pupils to appear at the event. This was a great opportunity to showcase our app desinging skills from Skills Academy. There were high school and college teams from all over the country with so many great app ideas.

All of the pupils, Apps for Good team and business professionals were very impressed by our skills, knowledge and confidence.

Here’s a little summary by some of the pupils who attended:

Zara – “We all went on the train, from Busby to Glasgow and then another train to Edinburgh from Glasgow.  We walked to the hall where the conference was being held, and Mr. Milliken got everyone there quickly with his excellent navigation skills! We set up our boards and then went to different workshops.”

Bayley – “We all did different workshops and my workshop was by a company called CivTech. We were given different scenarios, such as air pollution, and to solve this problem we thought of making an air pollution app.”

Amy – “My workshop was with a business man who told us about pitching an idea. We had to pick a company and write a pitch for it. My group chose Fairtrade because we had learned a lot about it in school. I enjoyed doing this workshop and it helped me as I learned a lot of skills.”

Zara – “After lunch, we had to showcase our app to some invited guests. Lots of people asked challenging questions, but everyone was very impressed, especially since we were the only primary school participating and we had made a prototype that worked! We also had the chance to look at other pupils’ apps from around Scotland and voted for the best one.”

More to come…

In our last block of App Design pupils were tasked with creating an app for a local business – Not Posh boutique or Visage printers. Once again pupils designs and prototypes were fantastic and Jim Wright, the owner of Visage managed to make time in his busy schedule to come in and share his experiences with us. Pupils were able to ask Jim about printing, the world of work and lots of other questions.

We were amazed to find out that printing only ever uses 4 colours – can you name them?

This mornign some of our STEM leaders helped our Nursery pupils create their own stop-motion animations. The Nursery pupils had built Junkbots in their Early Years Skills Academy and wanted to bring them to life. With the support of our P7 tech-whizzes they managed to create a series of short films starring their Junkbots.

Here is a copy of the topical science newsletter for the month of March.

1703 Topical Science Update March

7 New Earth sized planets have been discovered orbiting a star in the Trappist 1 System. Only 3 of the planets have been marked with a “Habitable Sticker”. But Scientists think all 7 could hold life depending on their individual properties. We all have different opinions on the chances that these planets hold life. So here’s what we think.

Matthew L – I do not think there will be life on these planets, but it is possible.

Mark T –  I think there will be life because one of the planets are about the same distance from the sun and they have similar appearences to Earth.

Sam S – I think that none of them will hold life. Earth is too unique.

This is a video you can watch about the new planets:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/39049747

this afternoon our STEM team were exploring digital music production on the Raspberry Pi. We used Sonic Pi software to code the melody for Frere Jacques. We’ve got the melody but will need to write the rhythm next time.

Pour code

Raspberry pi

Well done to January’s Scientists of the month winners.

The winners are:

P1a – Lewis

P1b – Emilio

P2 – Harris

P2/3 – Megan

P3 –

P4 – Keeley

P4/5 – Alex

P6 – Emma, Natasha, Aidan

All other classes have not yet started science.

How safe is your family online?

Tuesday 7^th February is Safer Internet Day. This is an initiative to promote greater awareness of the dangers in online activity. At Busby Primary we are discussing with pupils how we use the internet, what they enjoy about using it and how they can keep themselves safe while using it.

Do your children have access to Playstation and Xbox networks?

Do they have mobile devices with access to social networks?

Is your Netflix or Amazon TV age-restricted?

It’s well worth discussing internet use and best practise with your family; here are some weblinks to help:

https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/safeinternetday

https://www.betterinternetforkids.eu/web/portal/practice/awareness/detail?articleId=1479083

Here’s to a better, safer internet!

WOW! Not much more to say after our Google Expeditions afternoon at Busby Primary. Yesterday our P4s and P5s got to take a visit to space, then the moon, followed by trips underwater to the Great Barrier Reef and an ancient shipwreck. The pupils were almost as excited as the teachers.

Here’s a link to more info about Google Cardboard Virtual Reality and the Expeditions software:

https://www.google.com/edu/expeditions/#about

Big thanks to Colin from Google who brought us the Google Cardboard Virtual Reality tech and set us up for our adventure.