In Sept, Anthony Caldwell of Science Ireland completed his MPhil in Information Systems in Queens University Belfast on students attitudes to online education based on our website physics.ie. In the same month, we published an article in Physics Education, an Institute of Physics peer-reviewed journal, on a simple method of reproducing Joule’s experiment on heat.

For science week we developed “Battleship Maths” as part of the RDS Science Live lecture series, which showed students the practical application of maths by launching projectiles to hit a target. Also during science week, we created our new Science Fair show for national schools, the Science Fair gets everyone in the schools involved in science for the day.

In Dec 2011, we tested our Physics Problem Solving Workshop, which is a half day transition year module to explore students abilities to work on physics problems and to encourage the uptake in Leaving Certificate physics.

Looking forward to 2012, we hope to continue publishing articles as well as online content to help teachers and students with STEM subjects. We will complete the Physics Problem Solving Workshop and offer it to schools who need to keep the numbers doing physics up. According to the Institute of Physics, in 2011, only 11% of students took Leaving Certificate physics and 25% of schools do not offer physics as a choice. This is a worrying trend but we are confident that with our new method of teaching physics this trend can be reversed.

Happy New Year and we are all looking forward to 2012, where Dublin will host the City of Science festival, which will bring educators and researchers from around the world to Dublin.

We wish everyone a great Science Week and encourage all ages to get out to these great science events.

Battleship Maths is a game where students will use trigonometry, co-ordinate geometry and physics to destroy the opponents ships. Battleship Maths has been accepted for the RDS Science Live Lecture Series and will be launched for Science Week 2011.

There will be two fleets of battleships, the science fleet and maths fleet. The names of the battleships will be named after famous scientists and mathematicians e.g. LE Boyle, LE Hamilton. The battleships will work together to destroy the other fleet.

The room will be laid out in two grids with a low screen between the grids. The battleships will be represented by a large bucket that will serve as a target, it needs to be deep to stop the ping pong balls bouncing out. Each battleship team will have a launcher and two theodolites (to measure angles). Students will not be able to see the opponent battleships directly but there will be a tall flag in each battleship which teams can use to measure angles.

Students will work in teams of six, two will deal with the launcher, one angle and one force, two will measure distance to target by measuring angles and using maths to determine distance. The other team members will decide strategy such as the speed/direction of the battleship and talking to the fleet.

The students will build a projectile launcher and then calibrate it to determine the launch speed of the projectile in this case a ping pong ball. The launcher will use a simple elastic band launch system. Once the students have built and calibrated their launcher they must find the best angle and speed to hit a target area.

The second part is to understand how to determine the distance to the target. This is accomplished by two team members one standing at the location of the battleship and one standing at the edge of the grid. They can measure the distance between them off the grid and then they both measure the angle between them and the opponent flag. Once the two angles and the distance between them are found the distance to target can be calculated by using trigonometry.

The game will have several rounds and the game will end if one fleet is destroyed or the time runs out, in this case the fleet with the most intact battleships will win.

Castlebar’s Maths Academy has been set up to help students, to excel at maths in both pass and higher level. The Academy does not take the form of grinds but instead is an accessible and enjoyable way of learning maths which involves problem solving and interaction with other students.

The Academy is run by Declan Holmes of Science Ireland who has over 15 years of experience of supporting Leaving Certificate students in both maths and science. The course covers the new “Project Maths” syllabus as well as focusing on Leaving Certificate questions.

This method has proven very popular with students at both pass and honours level as it builds their confidence over time by focusing on specific issues that students find difficult and working through these at their pace. The students work together in small groups, which aids learning and most importantly gives the students a repeatable method for problem solving which they can use in their exams.

The Academy will also present “Learn the Application of Maths” nights which will help students understand how maths relates to their everyday world.

The Maths Academy meets each Wednesday from 4.45 – 7pm in the Celtic Football Ground Clubhouse Meeting Room beside the Castlebar County Library and the first session is free. For more information call 087 9176292.

Established by an ‘Ant and Dec’ of a different variety (Donegal man Anthony Caldwell and Declan Holmes of Newport, County Mayo) Science Ireland originally created physics shows and online courses as a means of increasing Leaving Certificate interest in the subject. Changing tack in 2007, the organisation began tailoring their services towards primary school students, and they were pleasantly surprised by the outcome “we discovered that the shows were extremely popular and this resulted in a new direction for us. We rebranded as Science Ireland as this was a more appropriate name for our new audience” says Declan.

This new direction worked well for Science Ireland, who’ve performed shows to 40,000 students in over 500 schools around the country. Offering five different types of show (physics, weather, rocket, electricity, magnetism and nanotechnology), Science Ireland have been delighted to note a marked increase in physics study in schools which they have regularly attended.
In addition to the shows, Science Ireland also developed a five day in-service course on the subject of “Activities in the Science Curriculum”, for teacher training at primary level. In 2009, the course was redeveloped as an online course with over 120 experiments.

While the primary school focus of Science Ireland is extremely successful, their initial aim has not been forgotten, says Anthony “we’d set out to develop an online course in physics – and I’m pleased to say that several modules of both Junior and Leaving Certificate have been developed and are available on www.physics.ie”. Anthony is currently conducting research at Queens University Belfast using the modules to examine student attitudes to physics online.

Regulars on Irish TV, Anthony and Declan have been featured most recently on the ‘Sattitude’ programme [rocket launching] and on ‘ICE’ [creating lightning]. In 2005, they won the ‘Innovation in Business Award’ at the Mayo Business Awards for their innovative approach to science education.

If you would like more information on Science Ireland, their upcoming anniversary events or other upcoming workshops and shows, please visit www.scienceireland.ie.

The Science Fair will culminate in a “once-in-a-lifetime” celebratory event at Google headquarters in California in July next year, in which the finalists will compete for internships, scholarships and prizes in front of a panel of celebrity scientist judges including Nobel Laureates, tech visionaries and household names.

How to enter
Any student aged 13 to 18 from around the world is eligible to enter the international competition. Students can enter as individuals or as teams of up to three.

There is no entry fee and registration and submissions will all take place online at the Google Science Fair website. The deadline for submissions will be 4 April, 2011.

The official launch of the competition is on 11 January 2011. In the meantime Google is inviting schools and teachers to get involved early.

Visit the Google Science Fair website to sign up for fun resource kits for your classroom or school (with bookmarks, stickers, posters and more) and get a reminder notification when the science fair registration opens.

To all have a safe and happy Christmas and join us in 2011 for celebrations.

Science Ireland are performing the first full version of our new show “The Nano Show” in the RDS Dublin on 8th Nov as part of Science Week. The interactive show will be performed as part of the RDS Science Live lecture series.

Nanotechnology will have a major impact on everyone from better drugs to faster computers from self-cleaning windows to shoes that stop your feet from smelling. Students will be taken on a journey to experience what it is like if we were the size of atoms. Students will discover amazing new materials created from nanotechnology like ferrofluids, smart fabrics and carbon nanotubes.  Students will see that science is alive as this amazing technology is being created every day here in Ireland.