• Funtastic Science workshops (Primary 7 Girls from all local primary schools 500 girls.)
• Year 8 Maths Roadshow (St Mary’s College and St Joseph’s Boy’s)
• Year 7 (Primary Schools) Maths Roadshow (Holy Child PS, Ebrington PS and Ballougry PS)
• 2 days of Think Differently Shows (Movement Theme) and (Magical Molecules theme). Total of 6 shows aimed at KS3 and KS4 pupils.
• Eight pupils participated in BT Young Scientist competition in Dublin. Two pupils highly commended (Senior Group, Chemical, Physical and Mathematical Category). One Pupil awarded second place (Senior individual, Chemical, Physical and Mathematical Category).
• Group of 30 Lower 6th pupils traveled to Strasbourg as part of the prize for Sharmin Rahman winning the school’s photo for climate change competition.
• Total of 16 girls worked on 4 entries for the Step-Up to Science “Create and Cook” competition involving Jenny Bristow.
• 3 Other engagement activities are under way.
• Chemistry clubs running on Wednesday and Thursday at 3:15PM.
• 6 pupils took part in Physics @ Home competition at Queen’s University and received certificates.
• Careers Talk promoting Step-up science to 5th Years delivered by Lecturer from the University of Ulster.
• KS3 Revision for Target pupils is currently taking place each day during lunch-time.
• KS 4 Revision for Target pupils in applied Science is taking place each Tuesday at 3:15PM.
• Initial steps taken to set up Astronomy Club-Link up with Lumen Christi to share expertise and equipment. Outline of proposed programme has been discussed.
• Engagement Lecture at Coleraine 80 Year 12 pupils attended ‘The frog Pharmacy’
• 2 pupils went to London to take part in the British Association for the advancement of science fair on 6th and 7th March – Aoife White and Nicole Lynch
These 2 pupils won the overall prize in their category (Silver award) and in the process won £1200 for the school. In addition they will now work in collaboration with the University of Ulster STEPUP programme to further develop their project in order to return to London next year to participate in the Gold Award category.
• 50 Year 8 pupils went to a science show given by Sue McGrath in the Youth Centre on Thursday 6th March along with 50 Year 8 pupils from Lisneal College
• Robotics Road show took place on Wednesday 12th, Thursday 13th and Friday 14th March with local primary and secondary schools. This involved around 200 pupils in all from St. Mary’s College, Lisneal College and Ebrington and Ballougry primary schools.
• ‘Water’ Presentation to local primary schools in St. Mary’s Community centre and related practical work. This involved around 90 pupils from Ebrington, Holy Child and Ballougry primary schools.
• Community audit was carried out to determine what activities would be wanted – fire safety, basic first aid, safety in the home, energy saving in the home were the four most popular ideas. This will now be followed up and these will be delivered.
• 16 Year 10 pupils traveled to Portrush on Wednesday 9th April for the semi-final of the Jenny Bristow Create ‘n’ Cook competition. All 16 pupils (4 groups of 4) qualified for the final on the 24th April in front of a live audience. There were only eight groups in the final out of 40 groups which entered. Of the eight finalists, four were from St. Mary’s. One of the groups was announced as the runner up, each member winning a specially made Jenny Bristow Chef’s outfit and an MP4 player. These girls also cooked their product with Jenny Bristow in front of the audience.
• 24 Pupils from Year 10 submitted their entries in the University of Ulster Renewable Energy Poster competition. We are still waiting to hear the results.
• All Year 9 pupils took part in the Carbon Challenge Roadshow on Monday 28th April to discuss Climate change, carbon footprints etc.
• 10 Year 13 pupils from St. Mary’s College and 10 Year 13 pupils from Lisneal College have been awarded the prestigious BA Silver Crest Award for their work in mentoring both primary and secondary school pupils in the Robotics road-shows run by St. Mary’s College (in addition to their certificates from SENTINUS)
• 70 pupils from both St. Mary’s and Lisneal College have been awarded SENTINUS certificates and the BA Crest Bronze Awards for their work in successfully completing the Robotics road-shows run by St. Mary’s College.
• Trips have been organized by St. Mary’s to the Lough’s agency for primary school pupils. (These will be ongoing throughout May)
• ‘Electricity and Circuits’ Workshops have been run at Sci4all for primary 7 pupils. (These will also continue in May)
• Bairbre de Bruin visited the school to present the girls who traveled to Strasburg with certificates personally signed by the president of the European Union.
• 7th May – Sixth Year Science pupils took part in the STEP-UP sponsored walk. This year the nominated charity was ‘Foyle Search and Rescue’.
• 20th May – 4 Year 8 pupils attended the Salters Chemistry Festival run by the University of Ulster. Although they did not win the overall prize, some pupils did win spot prizes including an MP4 player for Saoirse Nash.
• 16th May – One class of Year 10 pupils submitted their entries for the (They had to design a website about a science topic with at least 3 linked pages). These web-sites will be presented along with the other Year 10 projects at the science fair in June. Pupils will receive their certificates at a later date
• 16th May – A group of 8 pupils took part in the University of Ulster Quiz Challenge at the University Campus in Coleraine. Pupils will receive their certificates at a later date.
• On two occasions this month the science department was involved in Video Conferencing with Lumen Christi College Science Department.
On the first occasion a conference was set up to discuss the possibilities for future links. Agreed future conferences included: A link between Science clubs in the two schools to give pupils the opportunity to present their work to pupils from the other school (This took place on the 22nd May and resulted in Lumen Christi pupils agreeing to present their projects at St. Mary’s science fair in June), a medical physics lecture to take place in Lumen Christi to be viewed via Video Conference by Year 13 pupils on the 4th June, certain guest speakers at science role-model day in St. Mary’s on the 6th June to be viewed by pupils at Lumen Christi by video conference.
Other ideas which have yet to be confirmed include: pupils from St. Mary’s viewing junior science lessons at Lumen Christi and vice-versa, discussion forum on the Carbon Challenge Road-show which has been delivered in both schools.
• Astronomy Club Update:
Astronomy Link with Lumen Christi: Plans to link with the existing Astronomy Club at Lumen Christi next year. Resources have been shared by Mr. J. Dunne with St. Mary’s. Planning is underway to begin club early next year.
• Electricity and Circuits workshops for Holy Child PS and St. Ann’s PS pupils have been ongoing throughout the month at Sci4all.
• Pupils from Holy Child PS, Ballougry PS and Ebrington PS visited the water treatment works at Culmore as part of the ‘Water’ theme on the SEP programme.
• Pupils from Holy Child PS, Ballougry PS and Ebrington PS visited the science department at St. Mary’s to participate in ‘Fun’ science activities.
• Pupils from Holy Child PS, Ballougry PS and Ebrington PS visited the Londonderry Port and Harbour Comission at Lisahally Docks as part of the ‘Water’ theme on the SEP programme.
• Pupils from Holy Child PS, Ballougry PS and Ebrington PS took part in a series of ‘Water experiments’ at St. Mary’s Community centre.
• 4th June - Video Conference with Lumen Christi for a lecture on ‘Medical Physics’ given by University of Ulster speaker in Lumen Christi.
Year 13 science pupils from St. Mary’s and Year 11 science pupils from Lumen Christi attended.
• 6th June – STEM careers day. St. Mary’s hosted a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers day involving 150 Year 10 pupils from St. Mary’s, 150 Year 10 pupils from Lisneal College and pupils from Lumen Christi via video conference.
Speakers included representatives from the Fire service, Ambulance service, PSNI, University of Ulster, Lough’s Agency, Bombardier Aerospace, Career’s service and others.
• 2 teams (4 pupils in total) from Year 10 were among the top 4 teams in the University of Ulster Renewable Energy Competition held as part of the University’s program of Engagement activities. They received their prizes (as well as a lunch!) at a ceremony in the University’s Magee campus on Tuesday 10th June.
• Pupils from P.S. visited the Science department on Tuesday 10th June for a science workshop.
• 45 pupils from 2 Year 10 science classes received certificates for their participation in the Step Up Challenge Quiz, held in Coleraine and the Step Up Website design competition. (The websites will be displayed with other science projects at the Science Fair, held in the school in late June)
• Year 10 Science Fair
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