Get your school on the map with Global Experiment Day: Tuesday 10th November 2015

Mary Mullaghy November 19, 2015

Thousands of students all over the world are expected to take part in the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) 2015 global experiment. This year the theme is “Water: a global experiment with hydrogels.”

Students taking part are invited to explore the effects that hydrogels (a man-made product) have on the water cycle before sharing their results with other classes across the globe. Not only are all the activities engaging, they also support learning and curriculum. So why not get involved?

There are three distinct experiments, all of which have been designed so they can be carried out without specialist equipment and on a small budget:

• Experiment 1: How much water can a hydrogel hold?

• Experiment 2: How quickly can hydrogels absorb water? Does this ever change?

• Experiment 3: An open investigation into how water can be retrieved from a hydrogel

These experiments support students in exploring the question: are we wasting water by using hydrogels?

All the data collected from the above experiments should be uploaded onto the global experiment website. Once uploaded, all the collated data will be examined and analysed. This creates an opportunity to discuss the importance of repeating experiments. Students can also receive a certificate of achievement for taking part.

Be part of something huge: check out their website for full details on how to join this global experiment.

Categories: News

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Christopher Carragher from Our Lady’s Secondary School in Castleblaney has got an asteroid named after him. The Monaghan student had an asteroid named after him after he came second in the World award in the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics category at ISEF 2015 which was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this week. Chistopher got to Pennsylvania after winning the SciFest 2014 national final last November. His project was about aiding people with memory loss. Memory Buddy!

Around 1,700 students from over 75 countries compete at Intel ISEF for a prize fund totalling $4million. Christopher takes away $1,500 prize money. After becoming concerned about the signs of short-term memory loss in a family member, he decided to design an automated system called Memory Buddy.

Memory Buddy

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Christopher said the whole experience has been “amazing”. “I met students from all over the world, and heard speeches from famous scientists like Nobel laureates Sir Harold W Kroto and Martin Chalfie. It’s been great to see all the projects that other students from around the world have been working on and it has been brilliant to spend a week together sharing our ideas”.

Sheila Porter of CEO of SciFest said that Christopher Carragher’s project “demonstrates that great science is characterised not by rote-learning and memorisation but by creativity and investigation”.

Christopher was representing Ireland at ISEF and come second in the World in his category is an impressive achievement for him is and a testament to the very high quality of science education in Ireland. "To continue producing the highest calibre of science students in Ireland, we need to celebrate their achievements more, to promote inquiry based learning and encourage students to take their learning beyond the classroom." via thejournal.ie

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