Fifth class worked in collaboration with Gerry and Lucy from Fiosracht. Gerry and Lucy travelled from IT Tallaght to Esker every Wednesday for a number of weeks to help us with our design projects.
First, we developed our own empathy by investigating the challenges that may be faced by elderly people when performing simple tasks. We wore rubber gloves and goggles smeared with Vaseline and tried to put some cheese on some crackers. It was hard!!
The gloves made it more difficult to move our hands, just like it might be difficult for elderly people with a condition like arthritis. It was also hard for us to see what we were doing, just like it might be difficult for an elderly person whose vision has deteriorated.
Then we created a character from the future. Some of these characters were humans, some were superheroes, but all had something that was making it more difficult for them to navigate through the world in the year 2100. After that, we were tasked with developing ideas for a design that would help our character. We brainstormed ideas with our groups before settling on one idea that was catering for our character’s needs and linked in with one of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. The 17 Global Goals are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace, health and prosperity.
We had done a lot of work on Biodiversity and how to care for the environment in Term 1 and many of our ideas linked in with Global Goal number 13: Climate Action. These included a hoverhouse that adapts to extreme weather conditions caused by climate change, a plane that changes the temperature if it is getting too hot or cold in any region of the world, as well as a robot that attends to plastic pollution in the oceans.
Other groups decided to focus on Global Goal number 3: Good Health and Wellbeing, with ideas ranging from advanced prosthetics, a walking stick complete with GPS for the visually impaired, an oxygen tank that provides energy and decreases chances of yawning and a medical device that allows a character who has been forced to feed through a tube to swallow and eat manually. Another group decided to focus on emotional well being and created a sensor that would allow their character to recognise and regulate his emotions. The fact that the devices were made for the year 2100 allowed us to be more imaginative. With the way technology is developing, we could create designs that could do things that are not currently possible.
We did some research on the importance of predicting the changes that the future may bring. This is important so that governments and businesses can plan for people’s changing wants and needs. For example, we learned that the population is increasing and that people are living longer. This means that we have to cater for more healthcare and more pensions. We also learned that is vital that we consider the challenges that climate change will bring and how we can change how we live to meet these challenges, perhaps by powering our cars with electricity or hydrogen and our homes using sustainable energy like solar power.
At this point, each group made a prototype of their design using Lego. This was lots of people’s favourite part of the process…and not just because it had been a while since we had used Lego in school, but because it allowed us to really bring our idea to life in 3 dimensions. Around this time, we started to experiment a little with TinkerCad, which is an online 3D design tool. This is very similar to the sort of programme used by architects and engineers to create their designs.
This is not the only piece of technology that helped us with our projects. We have been learning how to code since the start of the year, building animations and games in Scratch and creating code for Microbits. Two groups included a Microbit L.E.D. display in their prototypes. In our groups, we created a Powerpoint presentation to explain our designs, which we then printed to create display boards. We felt that these display boards were important so that we could have a visual aid to help us communicate our idea to anybody who visited our STEMpathy showcase.
Making a movieAs a whole class, we put an introductory movie together, the script of which has been adapted to create this very text you are reading right now! The parents, invited guests and students from other year groups who came to our showcase watched an introductory movie on arrival. Click 'play' below and see for yourselves!!
The guests were then ask to browse the display stands, which included prototypes, display boards and yet more video documentaries that each group had made on our own, individual projects. We used Windows MovieMaker to add pictures, music and the audio from the interviews we conducted to our videos.
Here are a couple of examples:
Lastly, we reminded the parents that we were also present at the showcase in person if they had any questions about our designs. After all, who better to ask than the designers themselves?!
Overall, the showcase was a huge success! ScifestWe told you all about the amazing projects 6th Class made for SciFest in the Science tab and how one project got the chance to exhibit at SciFest in Kishogue Community College against secondary school pupils and they won!
Here are some photos from the day 6th Class shared their work with other classes in Esker and to other teachers, pupils and members of the community in Kishogue. stem showcase 2017-2018We do so many exciting things in Esker and we love to share our learning and investigations. We do this in so many ways. Junior and senior classes regularly buddy up to teach and learn from each other. We invite our parents into our school to help out in class, and to look at presentations of our amazing work. One of our many highlights this year has been our Esker Engineering Festival. Children from 3rd to 6th class showed off their work in a large exhibition. 1st and 2nd class and lots of parents and teachers came and where amazed by all the wonderful STEM work on display.
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