SCIENCE

Official Journal of the Irish Science Teachers’ Association Eol-Oidí na hÉireann, Volume 52, Number 2, March 2017

Contents

Chairman’s Report Seán Fogarty 3 Dates for Diary 4 Cyanobacteria as a source of renewable energy Conor O’Brien 5 'The Farthest' 6 Antibiotic Resistance Education 6 ISTA Corporate Members 6 News & Views Mary Mullaghy 7 Teaching Energy at Junior Cycle SEAI 10 Science Education ...Collaboration between ISTA and ICASE Declan Kennedy 11 Callan, Stoney, Joly and Others Adrian Somerfield 12 Setting up a Junior Certificate investigation...Richie Moynihan & Paudie Scanlon 17 Electrolysis, ‘Electrolytic Gas’ and Hydrogen-Oxygen Bangs! Randal Henly 18 HPV Vaccine: Separating Fact from Fiction Breda Cosgrove 19 Musings Ian McCulloch 21 Book Review Brian Smyth 22 Rio Ferdinand at ‘Dream it do it’ reception ... Yvonne Higgins 23 Naughton Foundation Awards 2016 Mary Mullaghy 24 Senior Science Quiz National Final 2016 Mary Mullaghy 25 ISTA Annual Conference Main Programme 26 ISTA Annual Conference Primary Programme 28 SciFest Celebrates Ten Years of Science for All Sheila Porter 31 Exploration Dome – a review Russell Harris 32 ESERA 2017 33 Science on Stage 2017 Eilish McLoughlin 33 BT Young Scientist & Technologist 2017 34 Personalising student’s experience Niall O'Connor 35 Coteaching Science Colette Murphy 36 Pocket Know Alex Goodison 39 BioPharmaChem Ireland – Focus on STEM Sophie Moran 40 Ten personal attributes that you inherit 41 Sky and Space: Spring/Summer 2017 Seosamh Ó Braonáin 43 Astro Quiz: A bit of astronomy and a bit of nonsense. Michael Grehan 44 Where Mici didn’t venture Paul Holland 45 Capacitors à la Charlie Paul Holland 47 CROSSWORD Randal Henly 48

Cover picture: Tartaric acid crystalising Tartaric acid (HOOC.CHOH.CHOH.COOH) occurs naturally in many plants, most notably in grapes. It is a dicarboxylic acid, i.e. the tartaric acid molecule contains two carboxyl groups (−COOH). It also has two hydroxyl groups (−OH). Molecules in which a carbon atom is attached to four different groups are generally optically active; they can rotate the plane of polarised light. If you construct models of such molecules you will find that there are two possible arrangements, or isomers, which are mirror images of one another. When chemically synthesised these substances tend to have an equal mix of both isomers. However, biologically produced versions tend to be of one kind only. If you make a model of tartaric acid you will find that it hastwo carbon atoms that have four different groups attached to them. There are therefore four different isomer of tartaric acid. The picture shows crystals of tartaric acid forming from a solution on a microscope slide. The slide has been placed between two polarising filters; this gives rise to colours that change as the crystals grow. (Picture credit: http://scribblesbyjoelle.blogspot.ie/2014_06_01_archive.html ) SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 1 Eol-Oidí na hÉireann IRISH SCIENCE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION

Council Executive Association President: Dr Conor O'Brien, Past Chairman of PharmaChemical Ireland [email protected] Chairperson: Seán Fogarty, Rocklands, Hempfield, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. [email protected] Vice-chairperson: Mr. John Loughlin, 17 Drom Oir, Knocknacarra, Galway [email protected] Honorary Secretary: Dr Maria Sheehan, St Caimin’s Community School, Shannon, Co. Clare [email protected] Past-chairperson: Stephanie Leonard, Intermediate College, Killorglin, Co. Kerry. [email protected] Treasurer: John Lucey, ‘Copsewood’, Rock Road, Mallow, Co. Cork. [email protected] Assistant Treasurer: Joe Griffin, Intermediate School, Killorglin, Co. Kerry. [email protected] Membership Secretary: Dr Declan Kennedy, Department of Education, UCC [email protected] Website Administrator: Mary Mullaghy, 26 Bailis Manor, Athlumney, Navan, Co. Meath. [email protected] Editor of SCIENCE: Rory Geoghegan, 49 Seamount, Booterstown, Co Dublin [email protected]

Branch Representatives Cork: Sean Finn, 32 Old Avenue, Glanmire, Co. Cork. [email protected] Donegal: Dr David Doherty, Gortlosky, Donegal Town, Co Donegal [email protected] Dublin: John Daly, 13 Valeview Ave., Cabinteely, Dublin 18. [email protected] Dublin: Lynn Catherine Anderson, 65 Donnybrook Manor, Donnybrook, Dublin 4. [email protected] Dublin: Mary Sheridan, 83 Lambourn Park, Clonsilla, Dublin 15 [email protected] Galway: James Stephens, Banavane, Ballinamore Bridge, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway. [email protected] Kerry: Una Moroney, Intermediate College, Killorglin, Co. Kerry. [email protected] Kildare: Dorothy Fox, Scoil Conglais, Baltinglass, Co Wicklow. [email protected] Kilkenny: Aodhagán Ó Súilleabháin, Heywood Community School, Ballinakill, Co. Laois [email protected] Limerick/Clare: Maria Sheehan, St. Caimin’s Community School, Shannon, Co. Clare. [email protected] Monaghan: Catherine Murphy, Carnbane, Smithboro, Co Monaghan [email protected] North Midlands: Irene O’Sullivan, Moate Community School, Moate, Co .Westmeath [email protected] Sligo: Lorna Davey, Na Caisil, Drumiskabole, Ballisodare, Co Sligo [email protected] Tipperary: Paddy Daly, 9 The Spa, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. [email protected] Waterford: Mary McDonagh. 5 Williamstown Village, Williamstown Road, Waterford [email protected] Wexford: Sean Fogarty, Rocklands, Hempfield, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. [email protected]

Editorial Team Editor: Rory Geoghegan, 49 Seamount, Stillorgan Road, Booterstown, Co. Dublin [email protected] Assistant Editor for Biology: Siobhán Sweeney, 22, Ashton Park, Monkstown, Co Dublin [email protected] Assistant Editor for Chemistry: Mary Mullaghy, Eureka Secondary School, Kells [email protected] Assistant Editors for Physics: Richard Fox, Wesley College, Ballinteer, Dublin 16 [email protected] Seosamh Ó Braonáin, Wesley College, Ballinteer, Dublin 16 [email protected] Assistant Editor for Primary Science: Dr Maeve Liston, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick [email protected]

2 www.ista.ie Chairman’s Report

Seán Fogarty

s graduates and teachers of science we are drip painting, owed much to his state of inebriation at the all well aware of the many effects that are time they were painted. If you or I were to try painting documented in scientific literature, from the by dripping paint over a canvas placed at our feet, we A would, it seems, do so in a fairly regular pattern as we Accordion effect to the Zeeman effect and many in between. However, I had never heard of the swayed ‘to and fro’ above the canvas – assuming we are sober of course. Our motion becomes chaotic in nature if Magpie effect, this one was new to me. Seemingly our stance is impaired by alcohol. The image thus formed I am a living example of the Magpie. then becomes fractal in its structure. Much of what we I, along with our president, Dr. Conor O’Brien, had see and appreciate in the natural canvas of the world come to the UK’s Association of Science Education around us has a fractal form. It was this similarity to (ASE) annual conference in Reading just after nature that attracted many to Jackson's art and made him Christmas to see what was new in the world of science famous. US President John F Kennedy stated of Ireland, education. in his June 1963 speech to Dáil Éireann, that “no larger nation has ever provided the world with more literary and The talk I was attending concerned CPD for science artistic genius”. I can’t help but wonder if the possible teachers. Apparently, when science educators attend link between alcohol and the creative arts has anything to an event like ASE conference, or our own ISTA AGM, do with that? Now there’s a young scientist project! we are always on the lookout for new ideas, tips and tricks and, like the magpie, we collect and gather all The second item that caught my attention was a more the handouts, brochures, notes, tips, tricks and photos down to earth workshop on literacy in science. The and bring them back only to stash them away at our workshop was run by Sofia Ali, an education and training desks at school or home. Unlike the myth of the magpie consultant, from the University of Birmingham. I was stealing shiny things to stash in its nest we at least have drawn to this workshop partially due to the current the genuine intention of using each piece of knowledge focus on literacy and numeracy in our schools and by or good idea we have gleaned. Alas we probably do not the realisation that the students that I teach have, in my succeed any better than the poor magpie. This has been opinion anyway, poor literacy skills when it comes to proved to me on many occasions when I open a drawer any form of scientific writing. This workshop gave some or locker to find items neatly packed away from some practical methods to develop the scientific literacy skills meeting or other that I had had the best of intentions of students and how to get them to recognise and develop to use but had never got around to. On the positive the objective and accurate writing style used in science side, I have indeed made use of a fair percentage of the as opposed to the more informal descriptions they are ideas I have come across and they have assisted me as used to. The features of academic writing in science a teacher throughout the years, what is worrying is that such as the use of the passive voice, precise verbs, a large proportion of the good ideas remain untapped. nominalisation and subject specific vocabulary were This does raise the question of the time available to all explored. This workshop opened my eyes to much I process, trial and implement the knowledge gained at did not know about the teaching of scientific literacy as all sorts of CPD. It would seem logical to me that to well as the wide range of skills we will need if we are fully benefit from such events teachers need a time to improve the scientific literacy of our students. It is allocation, no less than that spent at the CPD, for such high time that we treated this area in more depth in our reflection and feedback to colleagues back at school. syllabi. This would allow a much greater return from the CPD, the ‘Magpies’ would better benefit from their trinkets Hopefully we will be able to bring several of the and would not end up hiding so much away, perhaps speakers and workshops that I, and our president, Dr. never to see the light of day again. Connor O’Brien, attended during our visit to the ASE conference to future ISTA AGMs. While I cannot report on all the speakers that impressed me at the ASE conference, I will just mention two here. After my observations about the new Junior Cycle The first was a talk entitled “the maths of art and the science syllabus in the last issue of Science, several art of maths” by Marcus du Sautoy, Simonyi Professor of you have communicated your frustration to me at for the Public Understanding of Science and a Professor the lack of guidelines on depth of treatment for the of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. While new course. We will be approaching the NCCA, yet unveiling the maths incorporated or hidden within again, on your behalf to request such guidelines, which many forms of art, from music to the written word, as outlined in the Hyland report, would appear to be Marcus gave a spellbinding lecture that captivated his international best practice. We will also be following up audience. One item that caught my attention was his to see if there are any further developments regarding the revelation that the paintings of American artist, and a implementation of the new Leaving Certificate physics, foremost figure in the abstract expressionist movement, chemistry and biology syllabi. Jackson Pollock, well known for his unique style of SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 3 I must thank our membership secretary, Dr. Declan Kennedy, for pointing out that there are in fact some sample questions available for the new junior cycle science Dates for Diary syllabus. These can be found in the document “Support material for specification for Junior Cycle Science” available on the NCCA’s website. In other news our website development is progressing well and a few tweaks are being ISTA Annual Conference Robert Boyle Summer applied to improve membership payments Save the dates 7th – 9th School and other features. I would also like to take April 2017 in The 22nd – 25th June this opportunity to remind branch officers Glenroyal Hotel & Lismore, Co. Waterford that information regarding the TPN funding Maynooth University, www.robertboyle.ie has been sent to you as has a request to Registration is online only: supply your bank account details to facilitate www.istaconference.com Science On Stage: direct payment of branch allocations. 29th June – 2nd July And finally, back to the magpie effect. We Debrecen, Hungary. are now only a few weeks away from our www.scienceonstage.ie AGM in Maynooth and by all accounts a great line up of speakers and workshops has SSPC – Chemistry been arranged for the weekend. Demonstration Workshops 3rd – 7th July University of Limerick PDST: Spring Workshops www.pdst.ie/sc/biology GIREP-ICPE-EPEC Joint Conference 2017 www.pdst.ie/sc/chemistry rd th www.pdst.ie/sc/physics 3 – 7 July CASTeL, DCU SciFest Regional Finals Bridging Research and So be sure to register for the conference and A list of dates and venues Practice in Physics join the flock as they head to collect all the on www.scifest.ie Teaching and Learning gems at this not-to-be-missed event. You www.girep2017.org can also expect the announcement detailing Engineer’s Week the launch of a significant competition to th th ESA Robotics Teacher promote STEM among students – find out 4 – 10 March Training Workshop more at the conference or, if you can’t make www.engineersweek.ie 11th - 14th July it, keep an eye on our website and the next 5th – 8th October issue of ‘Science’. I’m an engineer – get me More details available out of here! Sean Fogarty, Chairman ISTA th th soon at 6 –17 March www.esa.int/Education/ www.imanengineer.ie Teachers_Corner IoP Rosse Medal – Spring ISTA ABM Notice ESERA Weekend 21st - 25th August Formal notice is hereby 11th March CASTeL & EPI-STEM given of the following Gibson Hotel, Dublin. www.esera.org nominations, submitted www.iopireland.org by the Limerick/Clare and Cork branches, Science Week 2017 Physics Busking 12th – 19th November for approval at the ISTA Annual Business 19th March Meeting: www.physicsbusking.ie ISTA Senior Science President - Dr Conor O'Brien Quizzes Tech Week Regional Rounds - 16th nd th Chairperson - Sean Fogarty 22 – 28 April November www.techweek.ie National Final – 25th Vice-chairperson - John Loughlin November RDS Primary Science Fair www.ista.ie Hon. Treasurer - John Lucey 8th – 9th June Belfast Hon. Secretary - Dr Maria Sheehan www.rds.ie

4 www.ista.ie Cyanobacteria as a source of renewable energy

Conor O’Brien

yanobacteria are multicellular organisms As it turns out, certain cyanobacteria strains are which are considered to be micro algae and amenable to modification in that it’s very easy to add are often referred to as blue-green algae. DNA and have it taken up by the cells, to turn certain C genes on and off, and to incorporate fluorescent or Cyanobacteria, being photosynthetic organisms, bioluminescent markers as ‘reporters’. use the sun’s energy, H2O and CO2 to synthesise their energy storage components, i.e. carbohydrates, lipids and proteins. They also produce oxygen and have had a significant role in providing the Earth’s atmosphere, a major benign factor for all life on Earth. It is now understood that cyanobacteria originated the photosynthetic process which was taken up by all plants over an evolutionary period of 2.8 to 3.5 billion years. Even now they are producing 30% of the oxygen that we are breathing.

Cyanobacteria can also fix nitrogen as well as CO2 and amazingly are capable of producing hydrogen gas under Cyanobacteria offer a promising biomass feedstock certain specific conditions. for various organic (ethanol, CH4 and biodiesel) and inorganic (H and electricity) biofuels. Cyanobacteria are very diverse and can be in the form 2 of filaments, beads on strings, spirals and also as single Currently efforts are underway to commercialise algae- cells. They can also live in many varied situations such based fuels such as diesel, petrol, and jet fuel. as the open oceans, moist soils, in deserts, and even on rocks in Antarctica. In conclusion, the success of future generation of biofuels will rely on the advances in metabolic Cyanobacteria have been grown under controlled engineering to optimise the existing energy-related conditions and used as foodstuffs (nutritional biosynthetic pathways. An efficient and cost-effective supplements) and also as fertilisers. The challenge has fuel production from biomass should decrease our been to find a strain which can be grown efficiently and current dependence on conventional energies which are at low cost. Large scale trials have been carried out in both scarce and polluting. open ponds and in bioreactors located in the outdoor sunshine. "Cyanobacteria are arguably the most successful group of microorganisms on earth. They are the most genetically diverse; they occupy a broad range of habitats across all latitudes, widespread in freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems, and they are found in the most extreme niches such as hot springs, salt works, and hyper-saline bays. Photoautotrophic, oxygen- producing cyanobacteria created the conditions in the planet's early atmosphere that directed the evolution of aerobic metabolism and eukaryotic photosynthesis. There has been increasing interest in cyanobacteria as Cyanobacteria fulfil vital ecological functions in the a source of biofuels to replace fossil fuel products. Two world's oceans, being important contributors to global main approaches are being pursued: carbon and nitrogen budgets." (1) Extracting naturally occurring molecules such as - sugars, fermentable to ethanol and other alcohols Stewart I and Falconer IR (2008) Cyanobacteria and cyanobacterial - lipids which can be precursors to biodiesel toxins. Pages 271–296 in Oceans and human health: risks and - some hydrocarbons. remedies from the seas, Eds: Walsh PJ, Smith SL, and Fleming LE. Academic Press. (2) Metabolic engineering aimed to improve strains to get ‘designer’ organisms to make and secrete pure products such as alkanes for jet fuel, hydrogen gas, ethanol, and even isoprene. Conor O’Brien, PhD, MBA, President ISTA What is needed is to find good strains available naturally and then improve them by bioengineering. The ideal strain should be capable of growing on a large scale and also easy to harvest, extract and refine. SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 5 'The Farthest' ISTA Corporate Members

A brand new Irish documentary THE FARTHEST had its first public screening at the Audi Dublin International Film Festival (#ADIFF) on Sunday 26 February at 2pm in the Savoy Cinema. This epic, cinematic spectacle tells the story of NASA's Voyager mission, which launched in 1977 and visited all 4 outer planets (the only spacecraft to ever visit Uranus and Neptune) and which is still going strong today, beaming back groundbreaking data every day from interstellar space — the only manmade object to have left our solar system! Five billion years hence, when the Sun has vaporised the Earth, the two Voyager spacecraft may be the only evidence that humans ever existed! http://www.diff.ie/festival/film/the-farthest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znTdk_de_K8

Antibiotic Resistance Education

Antibiotic resistance is a huge and growing problem worldwide, making common diseases harder and more expensive to treat and causing 700,000 deaths globally each year from diseases such as TB and infections like MRSA1. While antibiotic resistance is natural, it’s being exacerbated by human misuse of antibiotics – the CDC reports that 47 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions are written in the US each year2. Trinity College Science student and Naughton scholar Elle Loughran is running an educational campaign to teach primary and secondary school students how to slow the spread of antibiotic resistance by using antibiotics responsibly. She believes that it is crucial to train young people in combating antibiotic resistance early. She is looking to visit Irish schools, particularly in Leinster, to give students free workshops in combating antibiotic resistance, and asks science teachers and principals to contact her at [email protected] to book a visit. 1. https://amr-review.org/ 2. https://www.cdc.gov/features/getsmart/

6 www.ista.ie News & Views

Mary Mullaghy

European Young Leaders – Google Field Trip Days at the Science Class of 2017 Gallery Dublin Science Foundation Ireland has The Science Gallery Dublin reappointment Professor Mark is running Google sponsored Ferguson as Director General of Science Field Trip Days programme Foundation Ireland and Chief Scientific again in 2017. Adviser to the Government of Ireland. You can find full details on how to apply on www.ista.ie Women on Walls Women on Walls is a campaign by Accenture in BTYSTE – ISTA Award 2017 partnership with the Royal Irish Academy that seeks to make women leaders visible through a series of Congratulations to Alex Goodison from Coláiste commissioned portraits that will create a lasting cultural Iósaef, Kilmallock, Co. Limerick on winning the ISTA legacy for Ireland in 2016. Special Award at the BTYSTE with his project entitled ‘PocketKnow - your ultimate guide for revision’. His teacher is Mr. Brian Clarke, member of the Limerick/Clare Branch. The prize was presented by Ms. Mary Mullaghy (Past Chairperson) on behalf of ISTA.

Chemistry in Action All STEM, all-stars competition Chemistry in Action is going digital. If you STEM Alliance wants to showcase your efforts and dedication want to be added to the email distribution to science education in schools. Share your stories with the list to continue to receive the magazine “All-STEM, all-stars” competition and win an invitation to and updates about their new website please an all-expenses-paid special awards ceremony in Brussels email [email protected] attended by high-level partners, company representative and public figures. Put Chemistry in Action in the subject line and The competition is include the following information in the email: aimed for teachers or Your Name, School address and Subjects taught. guidance counsellors for primary/secondary Chemistry in Action and the annual ChemEd Conference was school students. The the brainchild of the brilliant Dr Peter Childs of University of deadline is the 28th Limerick, and the first issue was launched in May 1980. February 2017.

BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition Science Technology in Action 2017 The 12th edition of Science Technology in Action was Shane Curran from Terenure College was the overall winner launched and hard copies of BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition 2017. His were delivered to schools, project on data science while all the lessons are also is entitled “qCrypt: The available on line. It contains quantum-secure, encrypted, lots of lessons suitable data storage solution with for TY and might inspire multijurisdictional quorum project ideas for SciFest, BT sharding technology”. His Young Scientist Exhibition teacher, Mr. Michael and other competitions. Shanahan is a member of the Dublin Branch of ISTA. SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 7 Education Matters SEAI – Energy in Action The newest edition of Education SEAI have a new resource for JC Matters has been launched by Science, developed by CASTeL DCU, Minister for Education and and designed to support the teaching and Skills, Richard Bruton. learning of energy and sustainability at www.educationmatters.ie Junior Cycle. They can be individually downloaded from their website here

ReelLife Science The winners of ReelLIFE SCIENCE 2016 were announced as Gaelscoil Riabhach, Loughrea, Co. Galway at primary school level and Patrician High School, Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan at secondary school level.

Dr. Maurice Manning (Chancellor of NUI), Brian Mooney (editor), Dr. Eucharia Meehan (Director of Irish Research IoP Teacher Award Council) & Prof Brian MacCraith (President of DCU) Congratulations to Physics teacher & ISTA member, Máire Duffy, from Clonkeen College, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, who was SciFest Final 2016 awarded Institute of Physics Caolann Brady, sixth-year student from St. Wolstan’s Teachers Award in London. Community School in Celbridge won with her project ‘Hum http://www.iopireland.org/news/16/ your Way to Better health’. It focused on the natural treatment dec/page_68635.html of asthma through humming and breathing techniques as opposed to using inhalers and nebulisers. Caolann will go on to represent Ireland in Los Angeles at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair 2017. GIREP-ICPE-EPEC 2017 The theme will be “Bridging Research and Practice in Physics Teaching and Learning”, hosted by Centre for the Advancement of Science and Mathematics Teaching and Learning (CASTeL) at Dublin City University (DCU). http://www.girep2017.org

ESERA Three reports on science education The 12th Conference of the European • Stem Education in the Irish School System – Analysis and Science Education Research Recommendations Association (ESERA) will be hosted • PISA–Programme for International Student Assessment by Dublin City University and the University of Limerick. • TIMSS – Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study The theme of the conference, Research, practice and – available on www.ista.ie collaboration in science education and underlines aspects of great relevance in contemporary science education research: the need to reflect on different approaches to enhancing our knowledge of learning processes and the role of context, designed or circumstantial, formal or non-formal, in learning and instruction. www.esera2017.org

8 www.ista.ie Minecraft satellite-building competition Tom Hyland RIP EUMETSAT is launching a Minecraft satellite- The legendary, Tom Hyland, a champion of science in building competition for 6-16 year olds. The goal is for Minecrafters to build a model of the Sentinel-3 or Jason-3 Galway, has died. A Waterford native, Tom was head ocean-monitoring satellites, or to get creative and design their of the IDA in the Western Region for most of his career own satellite and/or ocean monitoring system with buoys, and helped attract many high profile global companies to automatic robots etc. Galway. In 1998 he was instrumental in setting up the Galway Science & Technology Festival and acted as Chairman until his passing. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis. More information about the competition is available on EUMETSAT’s Youth Education website at: http://l-zone.info/minecraft-competition-2016

SciChallenge

SciChallenge is a Europe-wide contest for young people, who are excited about NATURAL SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING or MATHEMATICS. They can choose a topic from 50 topic sheets or can also work on a topic of their choice and create a poster, a presentation or a video. After they have submitted their poster, presentation or video, they will have the chance to get invited to the final award event in Vienna. For more information on how to participate, see toolkits! iWish iWish (Inspiring Women in STEM) is an initiative to encourage female secondary school students to pursue careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering Engineering opportunity for Transition Year and Maths) where there are traditionally lower levels of Applications are now female participation. It aims to bridge the gender gap by open for Engineering promoting careers in STEM. In February almost 5000 female Your Future, a week- Transition Year students gathered at Cork City Hall and the long programme designed RDS Dublin. Together with numerous interactive exhibitions, to give Transition Year the conferences featured a number of workshops, keynote students a meaningful, addresses and engaging talks by leading women in STEM. www.iwish.ie practical insight into engineering.

Amgen Teach Workshops 17" LCD MONITOR Make: RELISYS Model: JM777 This colour monitor is working perfectly If you are interested in collect- PDST in conjunction with Amgen Teach provided 3-day ing this please contact Randal teacher support workshops on Coursework B nationwide. Henly: [email protected] A suite of resources to enhance engagement of students with scientific enquiry was provided, and teachers had the opportunity to carry out investigations, network with colleagues and gain facilitation skills. Watch out for similar workshops in the next academic year – all details will be Mary Mullaghy, ISTA Web Administrator, circulated via our website & Facebook pages. National Quiz Coordinator and former ISTA Chair.

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 9 ESB interactive Teaching Energy resource on at Junior Cycle electricity A new module from SEAI

SB has launched an interactive educational Energy in Action resource to allow students a greater -- a module for teaching energy & sustain- Eunderstanding of how electricity is generated ability in the Junior Cycle classroom and the workings of a power station. InsideAghada is a web-based power station demonstration that allows teachers and students gain a real insight into the workings of the Aghada generating plant. Located outside Midleton in Cork, Aghada is one of Europe’s most efficient and cleanest generating plants with the capability of generating enough electricity to supply approximately 8% of power demand on the island of Ireland. This animation is the first offering from ESB’s planned educational hub that will be hosted at: Teachers – bring renewed energy into your Science class with http://esbgeneration.esb.ie/aghada/intro/ SEAI’s Energy In Action module. It is a collection of activities and ideas designed to support the teaching and learning The aim of this hub is to share information and knowledge of energy and sustainability in the junior cycle classroom. about the energy sector in an accessible and engaging way. These activities have been developed for use with an inquiry approach to energy education and aim to enhance students’ Speaking at the launch of the resource at the Science Gallery in scientific knowledge, skills and competencies. View the Dublin, Pat O’Doherty, Chief Executive of ESB, said: activities and download here "Energy and the way it is produced and consumed is Energy in Action is focussed on providing students with everybody’s business. Climate change means that we can’t opportunities to consider and tackle problems that the future be complacent about where our energy comes from, but holds, e.g. sustainable practices in schools, homes and beyond. equally, we need affordable energy supplies that we can It will develop young peoples’ knowledge across a range reply on every day to power our homes and businesses." of topics, such as energy sources, efficiency, conservation, climate change and link these concepts to students’ daily lives. Only with a generation of energy-smart and resource- conscious citizens can Ireland bring about the sustainability it needs to ensure a prosperous future. The programme was developed by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) in collaboration with junior cycle teachers and the Centre for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning (CASTeL) at DCU.

Aoife Cannon, Education Programme Executive, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland

While providing a basic understanding of electricity generation at the plant, the animation allows users to get more information on the scientific principles and science behind it all. Bilingual supplementary notes, including past exam questions related to the topic, are provided for teachers to augment the presentation. Each year, ESB receives hundreds of requests by schools to visit our power stations around Ireland. As much of the equipment is encased for safety reasons, it can be difficult for students to truly get an insight into the station’s inner workings. From the comfort of their classroom, they can now learn and appreciate the power of generating stations, via http://ESBGeneration.esb.ie

10 www.ista.ie Science Education at International Level − Collaboration between ISTA and ICASE

Declan Kennedy

he International Council of Associations for were involved in the PROFILES project. PROFILES stands for Professional Reflection-Oriented Focus on Inquiry-based Learning Science Education (ICASE) was set up in and Education though Science. This research project was funded by 1972 by the United Nations Educational, the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of T the European Commission. In collaboration with ICASE, the Eureka Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO( ) to Centre UCC and ISTA teachers, a number of teaching packages for extend and improve science education throughout Transition Year students were developed as part of the PROFILES the world. Today, ICASE is a vast network project. These have proved very popular with teachers and may of science teacher associations, institutions, be downloaded free of charge from http://chemweb.ucc.ie/Pro2/ foundations and companies, working together to PROFILES-UCC.htm promote science and technology education around A summary of the various teaching packages is given in Table 1. The the world. ICASE facilitates communication and authors of the teaching packages are science teachers Marguerite Alley, Michael Conerney, Simon Hill, Áine Hyland, Marie Lavin, cooperation at national, regional, and international Sheena Walsh McQuillan, Maria O’Callaghan, Michelle O’Shea, levels. Ciara Hereward Ryan and Marjorie Ryan. There is great credit due to these teachers who wrote the teaching packages and trialled them with The ISTA has worked closely with ICASE since its foundation. their own students. Initially the links were made through the work of Dr Oliver Ryan who ensured that the ISTA was always represented at the World These Transition Year Teaching Packages cover a number of Conference on Science and Technology Education which is organised different topics. Each Teaching Package contains detailed notes for by ICASE every three years. At the recent World Conference on the teacher on each lesson, a poster summarising the topic and some Science and Technology Education held in Antalya, Turkey, it was a notes for datalogging activities associated with the topic. great honour for the ISTA to have Mary Mullaghy, former chairman of ISTA, elected to the position of Hon Treasurer of ICASE. Heartiest • Does it give you wings? congratulations to Mary on being appointed to such a senior position This modules investigates the role of energy drinks in sports and in ICASE! exercise • Enzymes are they really needed? The Association for Science Education (ASE) conference was held th th This modules examines the role of enzymes in different from 4 – 7 January 2017 at the University of Reading, England. environments The conference was attended by several thousand science teachers from primary, secondary and tertiary level. The ISTA was formally • Getting things moving. represented by our President, Dr Conor O’Brien, and our chairman, This module investigates the principles behind the physical Sean Fogarty. I attend the conference each year to keep up to date transportation of goods. with developments in science education in the UK and I usually help • Grip it or slip it. to staff the ICASE stand. This module investigates the factors that cause a car tyre to slip. • Mouthwash – does alcohol really make a difference? The ASE Conference is always a good opportunity for ICASE This module investigates the effectiveness of mouthwash representatives to meet its members and to encourage other containing alcohol compared to mouthwash that does not contain organisations to join ICASE. This year we displayed some of alcohol the modules developed by the ISTA teachers in Ireland who • Organ donation – opt in or opt out? This module allows students to consider issues related to organ donation. • Sweaty Betty – Which is the best deodorant? In this module student investigate how deodorants work. • That makes me sick? In this module students investigate different types of microorganisms • Which antacid remedy is the most effective in dealing with excess stomach acid? This module allows students to compare different types of antacid remedies • Body at War In this module students investigate how the body defends itself against various diseases Table 1. Examples of Transition Year teaching packages developed by ISTA in collaboration with ICASE. The ICASE stand at the ASE conference was an ideal opportunity for us to promote ICASE and also to promote the ISTA as an enthusiastic member of ICASE.

Dr Conor O’Brien, President of the Irish Science Teachers’ Association, flying the flag for Ireland at the ICASE stand! Also in the photograph is Dr Sue Dale Tunnicliffe and Dr Declan Kennedy. (Photo: Jeff Jamias)

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 11 Callan, Stoney, Joly and Others

Adrian Somerfield

his article is a revision and updating of my and became a pioneer of the New Learning which was based Presidential Address given in Cork in 1977. It on observation and experiment, as illustrated by the rise of bodies like the Royal Society in London and Academies Twas then a “slide show” with about 120 slides elsewhere. Molyneux was the correspondent and friend of showing many of the people and places mentioned. the first Astronomer Royal at Greenwich, John Flamsteed; of Hooke and Halley and Locke. He was acquainted with When I was invited to become President in 1977, Christiaan Huyghens in Holland and Newton in England. some 40 years ago, I felt that as a practising Molyneux published the first large book in English on the science teacher I should try to talk about something science of Optics, with particular reference to lenses, called generally scientific, not in any particular science. Dioptrica Nova, and with a small group founded and ran a At that time there were stirrings of interest in Dublin Philosophical Society, from which can be traced the origins of both the Royal Dublin Society (1731) and the Royal the much-neglected history of Irish science and Irish Academy. scientists, and Father Michael Casey of Maynooth was a strong advocate of this, and there is a museum Although I selected my trio I would like to suggest that there of scientific things there. Of course, nowadays you were many other scientists working in Ireland in the last two centuries or more, many of whom were well thought of by could find out anything you wanted on-line, but it colleagues abroad. That we do not remember much about was different then! them is not that they did not exist, but that little has been done Although in most libraries you could find many books about to collect and interpret and lay claim to what they did. The poets and writers and artists, rebels and politicians, there was fact that Ireland was not independent, but a junior part of the practically nothing about scientists or engineers or medical or United Kingdom, did not help. Also inevitably most of her “practical” people, so I thought I would look into that. educated people able to pursue scientific activities or to attend places of learning such as Ireland’s only university at Trinity My topic was suggested to me while looking at the books College, Dublin, belonged to the “Ascendancy” minority. in our science library. Two titles caught my eye. One was, simply, “Lavoisier, Fourier, Faraday”. The other was “Faraday, Among rows of books about Irish Maxwell, Kelvin”. I wondered whether I could base my talk on patriots, lawyers, writers and poets, the names of three Irish scientists. Finally I settled on Callan, you may find old copies of works of Stoney and Joly. antiquarian and natural historical interest. You might find a copy of Sir Robert Kane’s book, Industrial Resources of Ireland, published in 1844. This work arose from a commission by the RDS to its then lecturer in Natural Philosophy to produce an account of the resources of Ireland and how they might best be used, which involved widespread travel around Ireland. Its optimism, unfortunately, was largely destroyed in the Great Famine of 1845 to 1847. Kane was a considerable scientist, also memorable as the first President of Queen’s College, Cork For many people, the only Irish scientist of whom they have (now UCC). A geologist with a mineral, kaneite, a natural heard is Boyle, of Boyle’s Law. He was certainly a great manganese arsenide, named for him, the discoverer of the ethyl scientist, and a writer and theologian too. Yet, at the risk of radical a year before Liebig, and a scientific investigator of the being unpopular, I find it hard to think of him as Irish. His great potato failure and methods of its cure, we could know father, Richard Boyle, came from Kent; his own father being more about him. dead, he found himself without ties and with a legal degree, so he set out to seek adventure and fortune abroad. Arriving You might find an old copy, or at least the facsimile edition in Dublin in the Armada year (1588), as a result of hard work published by Partington and Wheeler (the first President and loyal service to Queen Elizabeth, and a couple of good of this Association and Professor of Chemistry in UCD) of marriages, he became the greatest landowner in Munster with A Comparative View of the Phlogistic and Antiphlogistic a seat at Lismore and the title Earl of Cork. Robert Boyle, Theories by William Higgins, published at Oxford in 1798, his seventh son, spent most of his life in the same year that Lavoisier published his Somerset, Oxford and London and his Traite Elementaire de Chimie. Higgins connection with Ireland other than his was born near Sligo in about 1762, and birth at Lismore in 1627 was slight. studied with his Uncle Bryan who had a laboratory in Soho, London. He later had An approximate contemporary of Boyle, a distinguished chemical career in Oxford who actually did spend most of his and was one of the first outside France life in Ireland, was William Molyneux to grasp and publicise the correctness of (1656-1698). During his period of study Lavoisier’s ideas on combustion. in Trinity College Dublin he became disenchanted with the Old Learning based In 1791 was founded the Apothecaries on classical authorities such as Aristotle, Hall, a medical school, at 40 Mary 12 www.ista.ie Street in Dublin, and William Higgins was appointed chemist are acceptable today; he also showed that as the temperature there. He did not stay long, however, becoming Professor of on the Moon fell rapidly during a lunar eclipse, the Moon Chemistry and Mineralogy to the Royal Dublin Society, a post must have little heat of its own. All this seems to me to be he held until his death in 1825. The Apothecaries were medical world class science which has been much neglected. doctors who specialised in pharmacy and compounding medicines, and were operators of what used to be called in A brother of the fourth Earl was Charles Ireland the “Medical Halls”. Algernon Parsons, who invented and patented the steam turbine in 1884. He You may recall that in the great debate graduated from TCD and from Cambridge on combustion there were those and became a premium apprentice to an who believed that burning consisted engineering firm. In 1889 he set up his of the release of a substance called own optical glass works in Newcastle phlogiston. Among those, indeed, upon Tyne, where he made searchlight was the foremost Irish chemist of the mirrors and glass blanks for large day, Richard Kirwan (1733-1812), telescope lenses. a medallist of the Royal Society and President of the Royal Irish Academy, What a splendid method he adopted whom the French scientists regarded to publicise the steam turbine, which he knew would be with respect as one of their greatest infinitely superior to the reciprocating steam engines then opponents. The French view was, of course, that burning was in use for ships. The Lords of the Admiralty had not been combination with oxygen of the air, Lavoisier having shown much impressed; old ways were best for the Navy. But in 1777 that whenever phlogiston is supposed to escape, Parsons had other ideas, and in Newcastle he built a little oxygen is in reality absorbed. That the oxygen theory prevailed ship, Turbinia, 100 feet long, fitted with three turbines driving probably owes a lot to its forceful advocacy by Higgins in nine propellers, and sailed it secretly down to Spithead. Here a second book. Higgins also developed an atomic theory in 1897 ships of the navies of the world were drawn up for and much of his later life was unfortunately taken up with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee naval review. Great pomp polemical argument as to priority vis-a-vis Dalton. Professor and circumstance! Then into this splendid scene comes a little Wheeler, however, seemed to think that although Higgins did ship, steaming at speeds never before seen in a ship, over predate in some of his ideas the work of Dalton, nevertheless 40 miles (64 km) per hour. Dalton’s theory was the more complete, in particular with Orders are given to catch and regard to the concept of the relative masses of atoms. arrest the cheeky intruder, but of course no ship of any of Apart from a few snippets here and the navies can catch her. So there you look in vain for any detailed their Lordships now began study of Irish science. Might we to take notice, and so did the mention a few more names? What Kaiser and admirals of other about William Parsons, FRS (1800 nations. Soon the turbine was -1867), the third Earl of Rosse? being fitted in all the latest Graduating with a First in Mathematics Dreadnoughts and other naval ships and passenger liners and in TCD in 1822, he built at Birr a 36- is now universally used in steam power stations. Clearly it inch reflecting telescope of Herschel pays to advertise. The successor to the steam turbine is the gas type, and during the 1840s a 72-inch turbine and ultimately the jet engine. one, the latter, the “Leviathan of Parsonstown”, being the largest astronomical telescope in the world for three quarters Mention of Parsons inevitably calls to a scientist’s mind the of a century. With these instruments he distinguished clearly name of Grubb. Grubb-Parsons was the name of a famous between gaseous nebulae such as the Great Nebula in Orion, engineering and optical firm at Newcastle upon Tyne. The and the spiral nebulae such Grubbs, Quakers and Methodists, farmers, millers and as the Whirlpool in Canes merchants, were established in Ireland at least from 1656, Venatici. He showed that particularly in Tipperary. Clonmel was once known as the spirals could be resolved “Clonmel of the Grubbs”, and branches of the family were into stars, and he gave us prominent at Cahir and Castle Grace, and are now spread the idea that we ourselves all over the world. Thomas Grubb, FRS (1800-1878) was live in an “island universe” originally engineer to the Bank of Ireland (printing banknotes whose outline is the Milky etc.), but he became interested in optics and set up a factory Way, the other spirals, of at Charlemont Bridge in Dublin where he built telescopes, many types, lying outside. including the 12-inch refractor at Dunsink and the 14 inch His wife, Mary Rosse, became a famous pioneer photographer, reflector at Armagh. He also developed the achromatic doublet though it proved impossible to take photographs with the and a photographic portrait lens. Leviathan since the mountings were not steady enough for long time exposures and it had very limited steerability. A In about 1864 he took his son Howard useful book was published about all this by Patrick Moore, that (Sir Howard Grubb, FRS, 1844- great populariser of all things astronomical, in the Astronomy 1931) into the firm, and they moved of Birr Castle in 1971. The remains of the Leviathan with its to new premises in Rathmines to build supporting walls and huge wooden tube have more recently the Great Melbourne telescope, a 48- been reconstructed at Birr, but the metal mirrors, of an alloy inch metal reflector for the southern of copper and tin cast by the Third Earl on hemisphere. The speculum weighed his estate, are still in the Science Museum 2 tons. The firm made many other in London. In the damp climate of Birr they telescopes, but the name Observatory needed frequent repolishing and maintenance. Lane in Rathmines is the only local relic of all this activity. Howard also His son, Laurence Parsons, FRS (1840- invented the marine periscope, and during the First World 1908), the fourth earl, was one of the first to War he was moved to St Albans to work for the Admiralty. In apply the spectroscope to astronomy, showing 1925 his firm was taken over by Sir Charles Parsons to form that gaseous nebulae give line spectra typical the firm of Grubb-Parsons who continued to build telescopes. of gases, and spiral nebulae give continuous One of theirs was the 98 inch Sir Isaac Newton Telescope spectra as do stars such as the Sun. His originally set up at Hurstmonceux in Sussex, but later measurement of the temperature of the Moon removed to the Canary Islands for better viewing. SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 13 Looking over the Border, we must not forget Thomas Callan Andrews FRS. A chemist as well as a medical doctor, he was Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Belfast Academical Callan was born in 1799, one of a Institution from 1835 to 1845. This institution was the “reasonably prosperous Catholic Northern Presbyterians’ self-help answer to the disabilities middle-class family” living in they had in attending TCD which did not allow “dissenters” County Louth. He was educated at (or women!) at that time; it was a second- and third-level a Presbyterian school in Dundalk, establishment complete with medical and theological faculties. then at the seminary in Navan, and Later, Andrew went to the newly formed Queen’s College, entered Maynooth College in 1816 Belfast. His world-class research was fundamental work to become a priest. It is interesting on gases and vapours at high pressures. His studies of the that one of the subjects then thought isothermals of carbon dioxide led to an understanding of worthy of a part in the education of equilibria between liquid and gaseous states, and of the critical a priest was physics, which included state. When we speak of Andrews’ curves, this is the Belfast mathematics. He graduated in 1824 man we remember. and then went for two years to Rome. Of the pioneers in the study of electricity, Volta was still alive in Italy and Galvani In more recent times we might not long dead. This was also the period of Ohm, Weber and consider as a technologist Gauss, and electrical ideas were in the air. Ampere was doing Dr James Drumm, whose for electricity what Newton had done for mechanics and invention of a rapidly Rutherford would later do for the atom. In 1826 Callan was rechargeable storage battery appointed to the chair of Natural Philosophy in Maynooth, a led to the Drumm electric post he held until his death in 1864. Here he built an electrical trains which ran on the laboratory where he studied electromagnetism and galvanic railways between Westland cells. Row, Bray and Harcourt Street from 1932 to 1950. To quote from the Irish Times: “The Callan’s scientific claim to fame was as the inventor and Drumm batteries of the Great Southern Railway were unique. constructor of the induction coil or sparking coil, which It night have been that, but for the War and insufficient is at the heart of the ignition system in most cars today. I research funds, Ireland could now be leading the world in this do not wish to imply that he alone discovered the laws of clean and self-contained form of motive power”. electromagnetic induction. This we will leave to Faraday’s credit. Professor Henry of Princeton in America had We should also bear in mind the pioneering work done by the independently discovered self-induction. Briefly, if you Jesuits in Ireland in seismology. Father William O’Leary hold the ends of a coil of wire wound on an iron core and seems to have been a bit like the Earl of Rosse who liked intermittently connect the ends to a voltaic cell or battery, to build apparatus to his own design. In 1909 he set up a you get shocks. If you make the breaks rapid, by rubbing meteorological and seismographical laboratory at Mungret the ends on a file, say, you get continuous shocks, or a high- College near Limerick, and designed and built an inverted voltage supply. Callan had already done some work on big pendulum seismograph for it, of novel design, which he electromagnets, and knew about mutual induction, where completed in 1911 and exhibited at the Geological Section of changes in current in one coil cause voltages to appear in a the British Association. Fr O’Leary moved to Rathfarnham second one, and by putting together a mechanical repeating in 1915 where he designed and had built a new seismograph system made from an old clock and a pair of coils wound on with a moving mass of some 1.5 tons (“The Big O’Leary”), an iron core, the induction coil as a source of high-voltage which gave good service until the work was abandoned in electricity was born. Callan exhibited one of his coils at the 1967 on the death of his successor, Father Richard Ingram. Royal Society in London in 1837, where it caused much O’Leary himself moved to Australia in 1929. In the 1930s interest and imitation. His “giant” coil gave sparks 16 and 40s Rathfarnham Castle was the centre for seismology inches long, corresponding to over a million volts. He also in Ireland, where the press and others inquired about any recognised the need for a capacitor across the “make-and- earthquake reported around the world. I saw the remains of break”, and made one. Yet Everyman’s Encyclopedia and this instrument in the early 1960s before it was dismantled; Abbott’s “Physics” says that the induction coil was invented by some of it is in the museum at Maynooth. [On quite an Ruhmkorff in 1851. Remember that Callan could not go out unrelated topic of interest to me, I also saw in that museum a and buy, as we can, insulated copper wire. He would have had harmonium with a keyboard in unequal temperament which to use brass wire or milliners’ iron wire, and insulate it himself, had separate keys for F sharp and G flat, C sharp and D flat with cloth impregnated with beeswax and sulphur, or tar. Miles and so on. Amazing what you learn if you look out!] of it! Time permits only to mention a few more names of those But Callan became almost forgotten. This may have been who have done great things for science in Ireland, and the because he was only encouraged to publish in a relatively list is not exhaustive. Emmerson Reynolds, chemist, who obscure journal, Sturgeon’s Annals of Electricity, and partly pioneered work on thiourea and barbiturates; Sydney Young, because he did not patent the coil. It was much less easy then FRS, who developed the theory of fractional distillation (on in Ireland for a scientist outside the political (and Protestant) which oil refining as well as rectification of spirits depend); establishment of the day to have access to more prestigious George Francis Fitzgerald, whose name is associated with journals such as those published by the Royal Irish Academy Lorentz in the work leading up to Einstein, to say nothing of or the RDS. In 1852 Ruhmkorff, a Hanoverian mechanic mathematicians such as Hamilton and Boole. working in London, started to make beautifully finished instruments commercially, and gradually the Callan coil If I have left out someone who is near or dear to you, became a Ruhmkorff coil. please forgive me, but I must now get on to my chosen trio, none of whom are mentioned in my edition of Everyman’s Two more things may be of interest. Encyclopedia or the Britannica; odd when you recall that two Callan built big. He built a 20 cell battery of them were Fellows of the Royal Society, an honour that each of whose zinc plates was 2 feet does not come easily. Of the three, Nicholas Callan proved to square and whose copper pots contained be the easiest to find out about, because a biography, Nicholas a gallon and a half of sulphuric acid; and Callan, Priest-Scientist, was written by his successor, he built a battery of 577 Maynooth cells, Monsignor P.J. O’Loughlin, as part of the 1964 celebrations to a form of Daniell cell using iron in nitric mark his centenary. acid and zinc in sulphuric acid, and an electromagnet powered by this in 1834 lifted 19 tons. 14 www.ista.ie Johnston Stoney of lines as we might account for the overtones of a musical George Johnston Stoney, FRS (1826- note; that the movement of the electron might be resolved by 1911) was born in Offaly. He and his Fourier’s Theorem into a series of simpler motions. engineer brother, Bindon Blood Stoney, Remember that this is 20 years before the Rutherford nucleus- worked their way through Trinity and-electron atom, or ’s theory of energy levels and by scholarships and “grinding”, and Bohr quantization, and six years before Sir Joseph Thomson in 1897 George was then appointed astronomical showed that cathode rays consisted of elementary particles of assistant at Birr. Bindon went on to electricity; yet here we have an elementary idea of electrons build much of Dublin Port. George only as things in orbits of some sort, the perturbation of these orbits held one academic post, as Professor of by magnetic or electric fields giving rise to fine structure in Physics at Galway for five years, but spectral lines. Surely some of the later workers in the field as secretary to the Queen’s University must have been influenced by Stoney’s work. Indeed, when until 1882, and, for 20 years, secretary at the RDS, he was in we teach about the electronic theory of bonding and refer to a position to devote a fair amount of time to study and was in the work of Bohr, Sommerfeld, Schrodinger, Heitler and so contact with the scientific streams of the times. His early work on, it is salutary to remember that the idea of electron orbits was on the propagation of waves and the formation of images was used seriously by Stoney as early as it was, even though in optical instruments, and in kinetic theory, but his main the real breakthrough could not come until Max Planck had claim to fame is that he recognised that the laws of chemistry cleared the way for the concept of changes in energy levels and Faraday’s Laws of electrolysis pointed to the fact that rather than motions of electrons to emerge. G. J. Stoney’s ashes there must be a fundamental quantity of electricity. He had were interred at St Nahi’s Church in Dundrum. already estimated, from Maxwell’s calculation of the mean free path of molecules in a gas, that in 1 cubic millimetre of a gas at stp there were 1018 molecules, only about 40 times the modern estimate of Avogadro’s number, and from this he John Joly estimated a value for the fundamental charge of around 10-20 coulomb, not bad for pioneer work in a difficult and obscure Of my three, probably the greatest scientist field. These results were presented to the Belfast meeting of was John Joly, FRS, another man with the British Association for the Advancement of Science in an international reputation. A son of the 1874, where he suggested that the quantity might become Rectory, he was born in 1857 and his home the basis for electrical units. The Belfast meeting was seven was in Clonbulloge in Co. Kildare. His years before Helmholtz put forward the same ideas in the 1881 father’s family had been French and his Faraday Memorial Lecture. In 1891, Stoney suggested the mother was an Italian Countess, so whether word electron for this fundamental unit in an important paper one can count him as Irish by ancestry is on the emission of light from atoms. perhaps questionable, but he graduated in TCD in engineering in 1882 and became The President of the BA at that Belfast Professor of Geology there in 1897, a post meeting was another scientist of Irish he held until his death in 1933. I did not personally know him, extraction, John Tyndall, born at though I did know his colleague H. H. Dixon (“Botany Dick”) Loughlinbridge in County Carlow, in whose son Hal was at school with me before going on to a 1820, though, like Boyle, his work was brilliant career in Cambridge and Master of King’s College done elsewhere. In school, we remember there. Tyndall for the effect that enables us to “see” Brownian motion and for the Joly’s first interest was in mineralogy and he built up a great scattering of light that makes the sky collection of rocks and minerals. He invented a device called appear blue. He is said to have invented a meldometer in which he could examine the melting and the “light pipe”, the precursor of the crystallisation of small quantities of a mineral such as basalt optical fibre, and he did much work in geology, spectroscopy, on an electrically heated platinum ribbon under a microscope. bacteriology and glaciology. Much of his life was spent at the For his mineralogical studies he invented the steam calorimeter Royal Institution in London where he was a great populariser to measure specific heats; later he used it to measure specific of science. Incidentally, another of the many connections of heats of gases, of importance in the kinetic theory of gases. the British Association with Ireland was that it was at the Cork meeting in 1843 that James Prescott Joule announced I feel sure that there are many in this Association who know his conclusions about the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat. The more about biology than I do. However, one problem which Earl of Rosse was President at that meeting. exercised Joly and his younger co-professor (of Botany) H.H. Dixon in the 1890s, was how sap rose through the stems Stoney was interested in the way atoms and molecules absorb of quite tall plants such as trees. That this was a physical and emit light, and found that many spectral series could be rather than a “vital” problem was already known, since the expressed as harmonics of fundamental frequencies. In 1870 upward flow of water still occurs even if the living cells are he showed that the frequencies of the red (α), green (β) and killed. Although osmosis and capillarity can account for the violet (γ) lines in the hydrogen spectrum were in the ratio 20 : roots’ being able to absorb moisture and to develop a small 27 : 32, and that the absorption frequencies of chlorochromic hydrostatic pressure in the plant stem, some other mechanism anhydride are similar to the harmonic series of a string. This is needed to get water right up to the top of a tall tree, much work was overtaken by that of Balmer in 1885 who proposed higher than the water barometer. a more universal formula. By hindsight we may know all about the theories of Rutherford, Bohr and Schrödinger, Dixon and Joly appealed to the phenomena of cohesion and but in the 1880s and 1890s scientists like Stoney were paving adhesion, and they showed that continuous filaments of water the way. Stoney’s most important paper in the field of spectra could be drawn up to such heights without breaking. Although was published in 1891; in it he puts forward clearly the idea, there is still a lot unknown about the process, it seems that based on Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory of light, that in school biology at any rate the Joly-Dixon theory is still atoms or molecules emit light at definite frequencies because regarded as useful, but how many of our students know who its they contain particles carrying the fundamental charge of authors were? electricity, which he called electrons, moving periodically Joly developed a method of colour photography and showed on elliptical paths within the atom. He accounted for series examples before the Royal Society in 1895. The method involved taking a photograph on a single plate through a screen finely ruled in three colours, developing the plate, and viewing the positive through a separate identical viewing screen. It is SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 15 accepted that the idea had been around since it was suggested by Duclos du Hauron thirty years earlier, but Joly seems to have been the first to demonstrate it in action, though he did not patent it. He had the advantage of photographic materials with much greater sensitivity in green and orange colours by then. Later it was developed commercially as Dufaycolor. Joly is perhaps best known for his work on radioactivity, discovered by Becquerel in 1896, and on estimates of the age of the Earth. He had made such an estimate based on the salt content of the oceans in comparison with the sodium content of igneous rocks. His estimate of 100 My may seem laughable now, but it was better than Kelvin’s estimate based on a cooling Earth, and at least showed that the Earth must have had some source of heat other than that present at its birth. In 1903 Joly realised that the radioactivity of uranium and thorium with half-lives of millions or billions of years could account for this extra energy. In 1908, when president Above are some examples of Joly's photographs of the Geology section of the British Association, he put forward a theory of radioactivity and geology. Basically his Hospital in Dublin in experimenting with the surgical idea was that, as radioactive elements in eroding surface or implantation of needles containing this into malignant growths mountain rocks accumulate in sedimentary rocks, they raise (starting with a rat), the basic idea in radiotherapy today. In the temperature until the lower rocks are molten and the line 1914 the RDS increased its holding to 900 mg, and founded of viscous yielding rises closer to the surface. The pressure its Radium Institute. Joly, in collaboration with Mr R.J. Moss, below, when conditions are right, then uplifts the strata in a invented a method of pumping off the radioactive short-lived wave of mountain building and, probably, volcanic outpouring, radon gas and collecting this in needles. The needles were whereupon the whole process repeats itself. He estimated then used in what became known as the Dublin Method, and a time scale for this of about 50 million years. Nowadays the stock of radium remained in the Institute. The Institute geologists would have more sophisticated ideas based on plate closed in 1952, but I believe the radium itself may still be in tectonics, but most would agree that radioactivity is the fuel St Luke’s Hospital. The fortnightly pumping-off of the radon that drives geology forward. and preparation of the needles at the RDS in Ballsbridge was a profitable side-line for impecunious science students! Another aspect of radioactivity in geology was his realisation that the Joly was such a widespread investigator and experimenter that pleiochroic haloes in rocks were due it is impossible here to record all his work, but I hope I have to the inclusion of minute quantities of done enough to show that Ireland had here a man of science radium, thorium and uranium, the haloes who deserves better remembrance than the oblivion he seems being the result of α-particle damage. to have received. The sizes of the haloes depend on the element causing them. At one time Joly Indeed it is my hope that this address may stimulate us to take thought that he had discovered a new an interest in what Irish scientists have done and to make our element hibernium, but unfortunately students aware of them. I hope I have given you some ideas it later turned out to be an isotope of and an urge to explore more. samarium. With Rutherford, he was able to use the haloes to estimate the ages of rocks, a method essentially still in use. Dr Adrian Somerfield [You may have read that in 1976 Robert Gentry and others Late of St Columba’s College Dublin, and Past President of the claimed to have discovered some superheavy elements of ISTA atomic numbers 116, 124 and 126 in micas from Madagascar. Though the discoveries have not been confirmed, the work has thrown some light on one of Ireland’s great men.] One of the first, if not the first, to suggest the use of radioactivity in the treatment of cancer was Joly, and in 1903 he persuaded the Royal Dublin Society to buy 30 mg of radium salts from the Curie’s laboratory in Paris. In 1910 he collaborated with Dr Walter Stevenson at Dr. Steevens’

16 www.ista.ie Setting up a Junior Certificate investigation on heat

Richie Moynihan & Paudie Scanlon

ver the course of the new JC, students are here for student choice, bar that it must be something that expected to carry out investigations using the can be investigated with the equipment typically found in a laboratory, or something that can be easily substituted to give Oscientific method. This is a departure from the same effect. experiments we are familiar with, and can take some trial and error to get students thinking in the correct In the final section, the students are asked to plan, design, manner to approach them. We can’t just walk into complete and analyse their investigation, in their laboratory hardbacks under the following headings: a double class and tell our students to develop an title, date, hypotheses, variables, labelled diagram, safety investigation. considerations, procedure, table of results, graph, data On the Google Group, Sharing Science, a teacher by the name analysis, conclusions, sources of error and refinements. of Paudie (follow on twitter: @paud_ie) suggested developing a series of lessons, in which the students will engage in a This allows them to engage in the traditional method of scientific investigation, looking at factors that affect the recording and presenting an investigation, although you may cooling of a cup of tea. This was inspired by a workshop choose to allow them to develop a PowerPoint, film, podcast, that took place in at the 2016 ISTA Conference in Limerick. or something else of your choosing. We also included, in this The lesson sequence would initially be guided to scaffold section, a reminder of the success criteria that must be met, the learning but this would become more open and student to ensure a full and concise write up was developed, in the directed as the lessons progressed. I developed a worksheet context of this particular investigation. Students had to show around these ideas and developed learning intentions based on that they had: the Learning Outcomes found in the specification. • clearly stated their hypothesis. • Pose testable hypotheses. (NOS 2) • identified their independent, dependent and control • Design, plan and conduct investigation (NOS 3) variables. • Produce data, analyse data, draw & justify conclusions • shown how they would record all physical (NOS 4) measurements required. • Select and use appropriate measuring instruments (PW • related their conclusion back to your original 1) hypothesis. • Investigate patterns and relationships between their • related their conclusion to the theory on energy and identified physical variables (PW 3) heat, covered in class. • Analyse the cooling process in terms of energy changes While this article relates to this specific context, the general and dissipation (PW 6). template of the three sections can be use to introduce any number of investigations to our classes. We guide the students through recording careful measurements and develop a procedure to do so, ensure they can identify variables and These were also reworded into determine appropriate controls and then let them redesign the success criteria, in which and develop their investigation, in a manner of their choosing the students could determine if that is fitting for the context of the investigation and materials they were achieving the learning available in the laboratory. intentions, as they completed the series of lessons. As we envisioned A full copy of this worksheet has been shared on the Sharing students would initially be guided, Science Google group, and can also be downloaded free at the worksheet is divided into 3 https://www.tes.com/member/djmoyno. sections. Figure 1. A simple setup to record the cooling of a cup of hot tea in a Richie Moynihan has been teaching Physics, Science and laboratory. Maths in O’Carolan College for the past seven years. He has represented Ireland at Science on Stage 2013 and 2015. He The first section is a series of guided questions in which is also a PhD student in DCU, focusing on the use of a multi- students determine how they will record the temperature of representational approach for students to understand concepts a cup as it cools, determine how they will record the time in Physics. Richie can be contacted at for it to cool, develop a procedure to collect their data, plot a [email protected], and has a selection of free resources graph of their data and analyze it in the context of heat loss. at https://www.tes.com/member/djmoyno. This shows students that they can design and complete an experiment. Paudie Scanlon is a teacher of Physics, Maths, Science and other nerdy things in Coláiste Choilm, Ballincollig. He can The second section is a short set of questions in which the be found regularly contributing ideas and resources on the students brainstorm and determine which factors can affect 'Sharing Science' Google group forum. the rate in which their cup of tea cooled day, with an aim to making it cool faster, or slower. There is no condition

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 17 Demonstration Experiments 5 Demonstration Experiments 5 Electrolysis, ‘Electrolytic Gas’ and Hydrogen-Oxygen Bangs! Electrolysis, ‘Electrolytic Gas’ and Hydrogen-Oxygen Bangs! Randal Henly Randal Henly

The hazards of hydrogen The hazards of hydrogen The myth that hydrogen is dangerous and can explode all by itself is just not so. When ignited, hydrogen The myth that hydrogen is dangerous and can explode all by itself is just not so. When ignited, hydrogen burns safely in air with a ‘pop’ and this is a characteristic test for hydrogen. A mixture of hydrogen and burns safely in air with a ‘pop’ and this is a characteristic test for hydrogen. A mixture of hydrogen and oxygen does explode when ignited and with a very satisfactory ‘bang’. If the mixture is contained in a oxygen does explode when ignited and with a very satisfactory ‘bang’. If the mixture is contained in a balloon, or in soap bubbles, or in a plastic bag, there is no danger (apart from that of sound). What would balloon, or in soap bubbles, or in a plastic bag, there is no danger (apart from that of sound). What would be dangerous, is to contain the explosive mixture in a bottle, as this could lead to flying glass pieces on be dangerous, is to contain the explosive mixture in a bottle, as this could lead to flying glass pieces on igniting the mixture. A very safe way to produce bangs is to blow bubbles with a hydrogen/oxygen mixture igniting the mixture. A very safe way to produce bangs is to blow bubbles with a hydrogen/oxygen mixture and then to ignite the bubbles. and then to ignite the bubbles. Electrolysis, ‘Electrolytic Gas’ and Electrolytic gas Electrolytic gas Those that have seen ‘Fun with Science’ knowHydrogen-Oxygen that I often include some Bangs!bangs, made by igniting bubbles of Those that have seen ‘Fun with Science’ know that I often include some bangs, made by igniting bubbles of a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen (‘electrolytic Demonstration gas’). This Experiment gaseous mixture (Number is 5 preparedof 10) by the electrolysis of a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen (‘electrolytic gas’). This gaseous mixture is prepared by the electrolysis of water carried out in a simple voltameter, and so the gases are formed Randalin the Henly correct 2:1 stoichiometric water carried out in a simple voltameter, and so the gases are formed in the correct 2:1 stoichiometric ratio. ratio. The hazards of hydrogen The Coffee Jar Voltameter To low-voltage The Coffee Jar Voltameter The myth that hydrogen is dangerous and can explode To low-voltage The electrolysis apparatus which is illustratedall by itself isis just easilynot so. When assembled. ignited, hydrogen Theburns The electrolysis apparatus which is illustratedsafely in air withis aeasily ‘pop’ and thisassembled. is a characteristic The vessel is made from a coffee jar (or similar) with a screw-on lid. Two round vessel is made from a coffee jar (or similar)test withfor hydrogen. a screw-on A mixture of hydrogenlid. Two and oxygenround holes are made in (melted through) the liddoes withexplode awhen heated ignited and cork with a veryborer. satisfactory The holes are made in (melted through) the lid‘bang’. with If the amixture heated is contained cork in a borer.balloon, or Thein holes are plugged with solid rubber stopperssoap bubbles, carrying or in a plastic the bag, electrodes there is no danger (see (apart holes are plugged with solid rubber stoppers carrying the electrodes (see next paragraph). Wires are connected to thefrom electrodes that of sound). However, with eitherit would be crocodile dangerous to next paragraph). Wires are connected to thecontain electrodes the explosive mixturewith ineither a bottle, crocodileas this could clips (but these can make poor connections)lead or to flyingwith glass cable pieces connectorson igniting the mixture. (much A + Mixture of + Mixture of clips (but these can make poor connections)very or safe with way to cableproduce bangsconnectors is to blow bubbles (much with a hydrogen more satisfactory); make sure the screwshydrogen/oxygen in the lattermixture andare then toreally ignite the tight. bubbles. hydrogen more satisfactory); make sure the screws in the latter are really tight. and Another hole is needed to carry either a one-holeElectrolytic stopper gas with glass tubing, and Another hole is needed to carry either a one-hole stopper with glass tubing, oxygen or just a length of glass tubing sealed intoThose the that havejar seen lid. ‘Fun Hot with Science’glue knowor epoxythat I oxygen or just a length of glass tubing sealed intooften theinclude jar some lid. bangs, Hot made byglue igniting or bubbles epoxy of a resin are both suitable for this latter purpose.mixture of hydrogen and oxygen (‘electrolytic gas’). This resin are both suitable for this latter purpose.gaseous mixture is prepared by the electrolysis of water carried out in a simple voltameter, and so the gases are The two electrodes are of coat hanger wireformed (no inlab the correctshould 2:1 stoichiometric be without ratio. a few The two electrodes are of coat hanger wire (no lab should be without a few such hangers) and the electrolyte is dilute (about 0.1 M) alkali (acid reacts such hangers) and the electrolyte is dilute The (about coffee 0.1 jar voltameterM) alkali (acid reacts with coat hangers!). Because the two electrodesThe electrolysis are apparatusvery close which is together, illustrated is easily the with coat hangers!). Because the two electrodesassembled. are The vesselvery is madeclose from together, a coffee jar (or the resistance is low and a high current will similar)flow with(I use a screw-on about lid. Two 8 roundA). holesThus are madethe resistance is low and a high current will inflow (melted (I through) use theabout lid with 8 a heatedA). Thuscork borer. the The gaseous mixture is produced quickly. holes are plugged with solid rubber stoppers carrying the gaseous mixture is produced quickly. electrodes (see next paragraph). Wires are connected to the electrodes with either crocodile clips (but these can Procedure: If one end of each electrodes is filed to amake point, poor connections) it will ormake with cable it connectors much (much easier Place to thepush outlet tubethem into a plasticthrough dish of bubblethe If one end of each electrodes is filed to amore point, satisfactory); it will make suremake the screws it much in the latter easier are mixture(*), to push and connectthem to athrough low-voltage d.c.the supply. stoppers. Better still, push the stopper onreally to tight.the Anotherelectrode. hole is needed Do tothis carry byeither holding a one- Use the as high electrode a current as isin available. a vice, Then and let a ‘pile’ of stoppers. Better still, push the stopper onhole to stopper the withelectrode. glass tubing, Do or just this a length by of holdingglass the electrode in a vice, and then push the stopper on to it rotating the stopper as you do so, Care is bubbles needed form here;in the bubble if youmixture are dish. Removenot the then push the stopper on to it rotating tubingthe sealedstopper into the asjar lid.you Hot gluedo or so, epoxy Care resin are is tube needed from the here;dish (VERY if ESSENTIAL)you are andnot move the comfortable in doing this, seek assistance bothfrom suitable the for metalwork this latter purpose. teacher or a competentdish some distance DIY person!away. Warn those in the audience to comfortable in doing this, seek assistance Thefrom two electrodesthe metalwork are of coat hanger teacher wire (no orlab a competentcover their earsDIY before person! igniting the bubbles with a lighted should be without a few such hangers) and the electrolyte taper. Procedure: is dilute (about 0.1 M) alkali (acid reacts with coat Do make the point of the experiment. Energy is needed Procedure: hangers!). Because the two electrodes are very close to split water into its elements. Thus energy must be Place the outlet tube into a plastic dish of together,bubble the resistancemixture(*), is low and and a high connect current will to a releasedlow-voltage when the two d.c. elements supply. are recombined. Use The fact Place the outlet tube into a plastic dish of flowbubble (I use about mixture(*), 8 A). Thus the gaseousand connect mixture is to a thatlow-voltage the initial energy d.c. is electrical supply. and the Usereleased energy as high a current as is available. Then let produceda ‘pile’ quickly. of bubbles form in the bubble mixture dish. Remove the as high a current as is available. Then let a ‘pile’ of bubbles form in the bubbleis soundmixture also makes dish. another Remove good point: energythe can be tube from the dish (VERY ESSENTIAL) If andone end move of each electrodes the dishis filed tosome a point, it distancewill converted away from. oneWarn form tothose another. in the tube from the dish (VERY ESSENTIAL) makeand it much move easier tothe push themdish through some the stoppers. distance away. Warn those in the audience to cover their ears before ignitingBetter the still, bubbles push the stopper with on a to lighted the electrode. taper. Do audience to cover their ears before ignitingthis the by holdingbubbles the electrode with in a a vice,lighted and then taper. push (*) About 10% detergent in water is suitable. A small the stopper on to it rotating the stopper as you do so, volume of glycerine (about 1%) makes the bubbles more Do make the point of the experiment. EnergyCare is isneeded needed here; if youto are split not comfortable water ininto doing its elements.stable. Alternatively Thus use commercial energy bubble must mixture. Do make the point of the experiment. Energythis, seek is assistanceneeded from to the split metalwork water teacher into or a its elements. Thus energy must be released when the two elements are recombined.competent DIY person! The fact that the initial energy is electrical and the be released when the two elements are recombined. The fact that the initial energy is electrical and the released energy is sound also makes another good point: energy can be convertedRandal Henly, former from science one teacher format Mount Templeto released energy is sound also makes another good point: energy can be convertedComprehensive School, from Dublin, one and longtimeform Editor to of another. SCIENCE. another. (*) About 10% detergent in water is suitable. A small volume of glycerine (about 1%) makes the bubbles (*) About 10% detergent in water is suitable.18 A small volume of glycerine (about 1%) makes the bubbleswww.ista.ie more stable. Alternatively use commercial bubble mixture. more stable. Alternatively use commercial bubble mixture.

.1 .1 HPV Vaccine: Separating Fact from Fiction

Breda Cosgrove

uman papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine protects girls from developing cervical cancer in Hadulthood. HSE school vaccination teams visit schools twice per year to give the vaccine to first year girls. HPV vaccine is safe and effective. However, uptake rates have fallen in the past two years due to alleged safety concerns which have no scientific basis. This is of great concern to all those involved in cancer prevention. This article provides the key facts on HPV vaccine, discusses vaccine safety and impact, and outlines the key role that teachers can play both in supporting this school-based programme and providing students with accurate information about the vaccine.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) HPV is a virus of which there are 200 different types. It is spread by direct (usually sexual) contact with an infected person. Approximately 80% of women will have a HPV infection during their lifetime. Most infections clear naturally but some caused by oncogenic (high risk) HPV types can progress to cervical cancer. Two high risk HPV types (16 and 18) cause over 70% of cervical cancers. recommended for girls up to 14 years of age. Girls aged 15 Cervical Cancer and older require three doses to be protected. Ireland has one of the highest rates of cervical cancer in Western Europe. Gardasil HPV vaccine protects against Every year in Ireland - two high risk HPV types (16 and 18) that cause over 70% of cervical cancers - over 90 women die from cervical cancer - two low risk HPV types (6 and 11) that cause over - over 280 women need treatment (surgery, 90% of genital warts chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy) - over 6,500 women are diagnosed with precancerous HPV School Vaccination Programme changes of the cervix that can progress to cervical The HSE vaccination teams visit second level schools twice cancer if untreated. during the school year. First year girls are given dose one in September/October and dose two in March/April. HPV Vaccine The co-operation of teachers and other school staff during HPV vaccine is recommended by: these visits is greatly appreciated. While it creates some disruption to the school day, there is overwhelming evidence - the World Health Organization to show that better uptake rates are obtained when vaccines - the International Federation of Gynecology and are given in the school setting. In the UK, school based Obstetrics vaccination achieved an uptake rate of 80% compared to 60% - the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (the when administered by GPs. independent expert immunisation body in Ireland). The vaccine should be administered before exposure to HPV at Does the vaccine work? sexual contact. The vaccine is recommended for all girls aged 12-13 years, as it has been shown to be most effective when There is strong scientific evidence of the impact of HPV given at this age. vaccine in countries that have introduced a vaccination programme since 2006 and have high uptake rates. Cases of There are three licensed HPV vaccines – HPV2, HPV4 and precancerous changes of the cervix have reduced by 75% in HPV9. The vaccine used in the HSE school vaccination Sweden and by more than 50% in Australia and Scotland. In programme is HPV4 (Gardasil). This vaccine was first licensed addition Australian Professor Ian Frazer stated in August 2016 in 2006 and has been part of the HSE school vaccination that after ten years of Gardasil HPV vaccine use “the number programme since 2010. It is offered to all girls in first year of new cases of cervical cancer in women has halved”. of second level school. Two doses, six months apart, are

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 19 There is no scientific evidence of an increase in the incidence Uptake of HPV vaccine of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or any other long-term In the first five years following its introduction, uptake of medical condition since HPV vaccine was licensed in 2006. HPV vaccine exceeded the target of 80%. However, as the CFS has been known for over 200 years. It is three to four graph below shows, uptake has decreased for the past two times more common in females and more common in younger school years. Uptake was 87% in 2014/15, it fell to 72% in adolescents. In Ireland, estimates suggest a prevalence rate of 2015/16 and an estimated 50% of girls received their first dose 0.2-0.4% so at least 440-880 cases of CFS would have been in Sept/Oct 2016. This decline varies across the country with expected by chance among the 220,000 vaccinated girls. The some counties in the North-West and the South worst affected. numbers reported are much lower than expected.

HPV Vaccine Safety Gardasil HPV vaccine is a safe vaccine with no known long- Do girls who have been vaccinated still term side effects. It is currently used in over 25 European countries, the United States, Canada, Australia and New need to attend for cervical screening? Zealand. Over 100 million people have been fully vaccinated Yes, it is very important that girls who have received the HPV with Gardasil HPV vaccine worldwide, including over vaccine still attend for cervical screening. The vaccine only 220,000 girls in Ireland. protects against 70% of cervical cancers so they should have regular smear tests when they are adults. Vaccine safety has been monitored for more than ten years and is frequently reviewed by many international bodies including the European Medicines Agency, the World Health Organisation and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. 660,000 doses Side-effects 1,062 suspected of HPV vaccine adverse events The known side-effects of the vaccine are given in Ireland reported zero long-term side effects - about 1 in 10 girls will develop pain, redness and swelling at the injection site and/or headache - about 1 in 100 girls will develop nausea, pain in the vaccinated arm and mild fever - about 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 10,000 girls will develop an itchy rash or hives Conclusion - severe allergic reactions with difficulty breathing are very rare (about 1 in 1 million girls) Cervical cancer can be prevented through HPV vaccination. - occasionally girls faint after receiving an injection HPV vaccine is safe and effective and the HSE strongly urges (they are advised to sit down for 15 minutes after parents to protect their daughters by availing of the vaccine. vaccination to prevent this). Science teachers can help to support this life saving school- based vaccination programme and are particularly well-placed There is no scientific evidence of any long-term side effects to provide students with accurate information about HPV of HPV vaccine. vaccine. Since 2010, more than 660,000 doses of HPV vaccine have been distributed as part of the HSE HPV vaccination programme in Ireland. The Health Products Regulatory Dr Breda Cosgrove Authority (HPRA), the independent body responsible for monitoring the safety of vaccines licensed in Ireland, has Specialist Registrar in Public Health Medicine received and investigated 1,062 suspected adverse events. No National Immunisation Office long term side effects have been found to be associated with the vaccine. For more information go to www.hpv.ie

20 www.ista.ie Musings

Ian McCulloch

n October we availed of an After many years prevaricating, we So far so good as his experience was the invitation to become involved have decided finally to install PVC same as mine. I then took two ice cubes in the Irish Veteran Vintage double glazed windows. I suspect we from the freezer and placed them on I are probably the last household in the the “warm” and “cold” rectangles. He Car Club’s Brass Brigade (pre- estate so to do. My parents had replaced was surprised when the ice melted with 1915) Run out of Dungarvan. the original steel windows which had, as some enthusiasm on the “cold” while the We were passengers in a 1903 was their destiny, warped to the extent other cube just sat there unconcernedly. Renault and we stopped for that any air which might have been Owen reckons he will think twice refreshments in the Great Hall above the temperature of that outside had before adopting this spiel again! The one more escape route to supplement insulation feels warm because the heat in Lismore Castle. This had the myriad other options. On the bright is not conducted away from your finger, side, I suppose that the easy egress of unlike the metal. The ice cube melts heat went hand-in-hand with the outflow because the metal conducts lots of heat of the nasty “vapour” generated by from the surroundings to its underside. gas boilers, gas cooker, Super-Sirs and The “apparatus” was made up from suchlike. My dad had a phobia about bits I had in the garage. John Daly uses condensation. He worried that if the gap something similar, but more professional in the double glazing leaked then there looking, in his schools’ diversions. His might be condensation which could not came from Steve Spangler’s Educational be wiped. So, the decision was made to Innovations in the US. Steve’s “stuff” go for single glazed aluminium framed is very reasonably priced but the cost windows. These provided him with lots of postage, packaging and sometimes of opportunities to mop up condensation customs paperwork puts me off. Will for the next 30 years! the new US President’s protectionist proclivities make transactions like this Our decision to upgrade was not taken even less attractive? lightly. I suspected that, if we didn’t do it now, mortality might compromise the Mary Mullaghy masterminded another some spectacular stained glass cost effectiveness of the exercise. Ours successful Science Quiz in November, windows, two adjacent panels will be the fourth house in the estate though there was a distinct paucity of which caught my eye. They to be treated to the ministrations of of girls among the prizewinners. A featured Robert Boyle of Boyle’s “Airtight”. When the company principal, couple of months later in the YSE Owen, first visited he asked me to put a none of the main awards went to a girl. Law fame and, maybe less well finger on the kitchen wall (it felt cool), Disappointing. The Quiz was, as usual, known, William Cavendish, the and then on the aluminium frame (it felt part of Science Week which ran from seventh Duke of Devonshire, who cold). He averred that this confirmed 11th-20th November. This confused me was the Chancellor of Cambridge how much better the situation would be slightly as this numbers nine or ten days, University in the early 1850s. It with the new windows. This was not a not seven, whichever way you look at it. good move on his part as I then produced was he who was responsible for the arrangement below and asked I received a School of Engineering the setting up of the Cavendish him to do a similar assessment of the Newsletter in which the 175th Laboratory. rectangular objects in the red (internal Anniversary of Engineering in Trinity wall insulation) and blue (some metal was highlighted. It was good to see not bar) saucers. (The unpainted undersides just one but two, photos of Brian Smyth. of the rectangles are also shown.) They were obviously keen to raise the tone of the publication. I did a couple of hours on the ISTA Stand at the YSE on the Friday. There were the usual hordes of youngsters. I always like to finish my stint at lunchtime as I’m usually keen to get home to recreate “demos” which I have come across. The ubiquitous Rory Geoghegan didn’t disappoint and he produced an arrangement which inspired me to assemble what is pictured below. The water filled test-tube acts as a cylindrical lens and the images of the words are inverted. You don’t realise that this is happening with the top four words as they all have a horizontal axis of symmetry. As you slide the test tube down the page, observers are confused SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 21 by the transformation of the bottom four words and find it Book Review difficult to explain what is happening. Brian Smyth John Daly (again), who also did some duty, presented me with pictures of a couple of items that he had seen at the Ontario Science Museum. He thought Three Centuries of Physics in Trinity that I might like to try College Dublin, and replicate them. I by - Eric Finch published by Living came across this image from another of his sojourns that he also thought Edition 2016. might appeal - a little too challenging I fear! Anyway, I did tackle one of his Ontario suggestions which is a work in progress. If you can disregard a distracting wobble as the golf trolley wheels make their way down the runway, it can be seen that the wheel with the lead added at the centre gets to the bottom before the one with the lead around the rim. Both wheels have the same mass,) 250 g of wheel, 700 g of lead). But the different mass distribution results in different moments of inertia (I). Irim is greater than Icentre, so the wheel with the circumferential lead requires more energy to get it turning, resulting in a slower final speed. I have two “grumpy old man” observations, both courtesy of the Irish Times. Firstly, a letter in early January about speed and road deaths. It reiterated the fallacy that a head-on collision of two vehicles travelling at 80 km/h is equivalent to a 160 km/h impact. I thought that this had been de- bunked previously. It is equivalent to EACH car hitting a wall at 80 km/h - not a desirable experience but one with only a quarter of the kinetic energy suggested by the 160 km/h. A couple of days later in the Science section, in a piece about Dublin Airport noise, we were informed that decibels were used to quantify amplitude. Metres are used to quantify amplitude. For teachers with an interest in the history of science, and in particular the history of physics in Finally, a garden snippet. We Ireland, this book is for them. had a late autumn/winter fungal invasion as can be seen below. The book focuses on the development of physics as a subject in TCD from 1683 to 1984. Ian McCulloch formerly taught physics at Sandford Park School. While others have written about the notable physicists associated with TCD, Molyneux, Helsham, Fitzgerald and Walton, for example, this book focuses on the 20th century and uses primary material not previously published. The basic framework of the book follows the sequence of Erasmus Smith’s professors, their assistants and colleagues. In addition, accounts are given of Trinity physics graduates whose careers took them elsewhere. I strongly recommend this book to all science teachers.

Dr Brian Smyth, Dublin Branch Treasurer, Formerly of St Paul's, Raheny

22 www.ista.ie Rio Ferdinand at ‘Dream it do it’ reception at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

Yvonne Higgins

n Thursday 12th January, I attended the ordination. The muscle group activity in ‘Dream it do it’ reception hosted by BT events such as sprinting can be identified and analysed. Injury prevention has also Oat the Young Scientist and Technology improved as these devices increase knowledge about Exhibition. A number of guest speakers, including biomechanical and physiological principles. the former Manchester United Captain Rio Ferdinand, addressed the audience. I must admit Running speeds of players can be measured accurately using photoelectric cells. Other technique such as that while I am not the most avid soccer follower kinematic analysis, which involves the computerised that I found the celebrated footballer’s talk to be reconstruction of different 3D movements, is useful for very interesting. breaking down specific techniques such Ferdinand attributed his successful as kicking or throw-ins. The quantitative career to an unwavering commitment information on neuromuscular co- to hard work and the importance of ordination obtained in this way can be continuing to learn at every level. In used to compare the progress of a player a world where so many young people or to compare players of different levels expect instant success, it was inspiring and ages. to hear a sportsperson who had reached Heart Rate Monitors which consist of a the highest level in his chosen field light weight chest belt which transmits reinforcing the link between effort information to a watch are used during and attainment. The Rio Ferdinand training to evaluate the intensity of Foundation (RFF) working alongside the exercise and in setting targets both in Active Communities Network (ACN) and training and in matches. They can be BT aims to ‘help young people develop used to ensure players are working at or the skills and confidence they need to above a target intensity in fitness training. Coaches can reach their potential through education and employment’. also ensure that during non-fitness drills such as tactical Ferdinand also described how science and technology or technical drills, players are not working too hard - has become central in helping to ensure the optimum especially important in light recovery sessions before or performance from each professional soccer player. I will after a match. outline below some of the ways in which technology has now been integrated into the game. Soccer boots Equipment such as the soccer boot has under gone a Testing the performance capacity of players scientific revolution in recent years. Analysis of the Treadmills and cycle ergometers are used under demands placed on the boot show the forces produced laboratory conditions to enable the physiological analysis from tackles, turns, jumps and sprints place a severe of performance. The speed of the treadmill can be adjusted strain on it. Boots must be stable, have a good fit, to simulate the different running speeds seen in soccer. properly hold the rear foot, allow the player to run Under such conditions, the maximum oxygen uptake, a freely and not interfere with his running style. Certain measure of the body's aerobic capacity, and blood lactate top players have boots specially designed for their feet. levels of players can be obtained. The rate at which Boots have become more flexible, lighter, responsive, and lactate builds up and the impact of anaerobic glycolysis durable. Vast improvements have been made through on overall energy supply during a match are of interest using better quality material. to researchers. Spirometers and blood lactate analysers provide clear concise graphical output on performance in Soccer balls this regard. Other devices that provide useful information Soccer balls are now lighter and more water resistant. By regarding performance include body fat analysers and reducing the amount of water a ball absorbs, this helps to blood pressure monitors. reduce the likelihood of injuries through heading the ball. Muscle strength can be tested using isokinetic machines. This can be useful in predicting muscle injuries such as Rehabilitation equipment and techniques muscle imbalance where one leg is stronger than the other Ultrasound is used to relieve pain and stimulate the and differences between various muscle groups in the repair of soft tissue injuries by producing heat. Laser same leg, e.g. hamstrings and quadriceps. The underlying therapy decreases pain and inflammation and increases cause in hamstring problems soccer players often suffer vascularisation, providing a better blood supply to the from may be determined by using such equipment. injured area. Furthermore, these machines may be used to monitor the progress of players returning after an injury, in building up References muscle strength. http://www.soccerperformance.org/specialtopics/ Important biomechanical information on jumping ability trainequipment.htm and power output can be obtained from force platforms. Electromyography (EMG) is valuable in evaluating co- Yvonne Higgins, Magh Éne College, Bundoran, Co. Donegal, ISTA Junior Science Convenor and former ISTA Chair SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 23 Naughton Foundation Awards 2016

Mary Mullaghy

hirty-five students from • Declan Shane Barry, Christian Brothers College Cork all around the country • Luke Fehily, Coláiste Muire, Réalt na Mara, Crosshaven, Twere presented with Cork the Naughton Awards in the • Pauraic Neely, Saint Eunan’s College, Letterkenny, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Donegal Institute recently. They • Jake McNicholl, Belvedere College, Dublin 1 recognise the ambition and talent of students in science, • Sinéad Ellison, Loreto College Foxrock, Dublin DLR engineering, technology, and • David Moloney, Sutton Park School, Dublin Fingal maths. They are due to the generosity and vision of • David Mullen, Coláiste Éanna, Ballyroan, Dublin 16 the Naughton family, who have been instrumental in • Eoin Corcoran, Holy Rosary College, Mountbellew, Co enabling increased focus on STEM. Galway The Naughton scholarships were initiated in 2008 in response • Muireann Hoare, Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne, Co Kerry to universities reporting that they were not getting enough good applicants to the STEM subjects and employers reporting • Eilis Boyle, St. Wolstan’s Community School, Co Kildare that there were insufficient talented applicants for jobs in engineering, technology, science, and computer science. • Sophie Cairns, Kilkenny College • Scott Levie, Kilkenny College In the same year that the Naughton scholarships were launched, the Science Gallery in Trinity College was opened, • Evan Bracken, St Mary’s CBS, Portlaoise which is also supported by the Naughton Family. Both the • James Johnston, St Clare’s Comprehensive, Co Leitrim Science Gallery and the Naughton Scholarships are about encouraging and enabling young people's passion for STEM. • Eoin Caffrey, Ardscoil Rís, Limerick For more information about the scholarships and how to apply • Conor Beirne, Mercy Secondary School, Ballymahon, Co go to http://www.thenaughtonfoundation.com/scholarships Longford • Elle Loughran, Our Lady’s College Greenhills, Drogheda • Donal Boyle, St. Gerald’s College, Castlebar, Mayo 2016 Naughton Award Recipients • Cian O’Donnell, Dunshaughlin C. C., Co Meath • John Harding, Presentation College Carlow • Gavin O’Reilly, Patrician High School, Co Monaghan • Oisin Quinn, St Patrick’s College Cavan • Luke Fox, St. Brendan’s Community School, Birr • Gavin O’Brien, St Joseph’s Secondary School, Tulla, Clare • Michael Stroker, Scoil Mhuire, Strokestown • Pauraic Máirtín O’Gorman, St. Michael’s Community College, Kilmihil, Co Clare • Paul McGoldrick, Coola Post Primary School, Co Sligo • Tadgh Kelly, St Joseph’s CBS, Nenagh • Niamh Casey, Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School, Waterford • Oisín Fitzsimons, St Augustines College, Dungarvan • Shane Gibbons, Athlone Community College • Aisling Loftus, Athlone Community College • Aoife Kavanagh, Presentation Secondary School, Wexford • Daire McGrath, Good Counsel College, New Ross • Grainne Rose Allen, East Glendalough School, Co Wicklow 24 www.ista.ie Senior Science Quiz National Final 2016 Sponsored by BioPharmaChem Ireland

Mary Mullaghy

he National Finals of the annual ISTA Senior The winning teams were: Science Quiz took place in the Tercentenary THall in Trinity Biomedical Sciences 1. St. Peter’s College, Wexford Institute on Saturday 26th November. It was full 2. Coláiste Colm Ballincollig, Co Cork to capacity with 45 teams of Leaving Certificate 3. St Paul's, Raheny, Dublin 5 science students representing 20 counties from all around Ireland and their teachers. Almost 1000 4. St Jarleth's College, Tuam, Galway and students took part in the Regional Finals held during Clongowes Wood College, Clane, Co Kildare Science Week and the top teams were invited to the BioPharmaChem Ireland sponsored National Final. The charity associated with the quiz this year was the Caroline Foundation in aid of Cancer Clinical Research. The purpose of the foundation is to support the work of Professor John Crown. Like ISTA it is a voluntary organisation and all donations go directly to fund researchers.

St. Peter’s College, Wexford, overall winners for 2016. Dr. Conor O’Brien (Honorary President of ISTA), Joe Wickham, Ger Dempsey, Carl Riordan, Ms. Judith Thomas (Teacher), Dr. Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin (Quizmaster) & Ms. Mary Mullaghy (National Quiz Coordinator)

Ms. Mary Mullaghy (ISTA Quiz Coordinator), Dr. Conor O’Brien (Honorary President of ISTA), Dr. Helen O’Sullivan- Dwyer (The Caroline Foundation) & Dr. Aoibhinn Ní Shuilleabháin (Guest Quizmaster) Thanks to all the local coordinators and their teams in the 13 Branches who facilitated the Regional Rounds during Science Week. (Bridget Buckley, Maura Conneally, David Doherty, Brendan Duane, Yvonne Higgins, Mary McDonagh, Siobhán Mc Cormack, Catherine Murphy, David O'Connell, Seamus Ó Donghaile, Aodhagán Ó Súilleabháin, Maria Sheehan & Brian Smyth). Thanks also to the Dublin Branch of ISTA who organised the Final. A special thanks to Dr. Conor O’Brien, Honorary President of ISTA, Dr. Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin for her continued support and who acted as guest quizmaster, BioPharmaChem Ireland main sponsor, Trinity College who provided the venue. Also thanks to Folens, ICI, IoP Ireland, RSC, SEAI & StudyClix who provided spot prizes and last but not least the students and their teachers who attended. Backroom team of correctors under the guidance of Ian Congratulations and well done to ALL who participated. McCullough

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 25

ISTA 55th ANNUAL CONFERENCE 7th − 9th APRIL 2017 Maynooth University & the Glenroyal Hotel Draft timetable

Friday 7th April 2016 Venue: – Renehan Hall, The Glenroyal Hotel, Maynooth 17.00 - 19.00 RegistrationISTA Annual ? 18.30 – 19.00 President’s reception: Tea / coffee and biscuits. 19.00 – 19.15 WelcomeConference and official opening Main 19.20 – 19.50 WelcomeProgramme on behalf of Maynooth University ? 19.50 – 20.50 The Life and Legacy of Rev Callan, Eoin Gill and Sheila Donegan 21.00 – 22.30 Buffet Supper and Music ? Saturday 8th April 2016 Venue: – Maynooth University, New Campus 8.30 – 9.15 Registration ? 9.15 – 10.05 Obesity/Diabetes Iontas Prof. Donal O’Shea 10.15 – 10.45 Understanding the Science behind Electricity Generation CB1 Michael Downey/ Pearse Ahern, ESB (Electricity Supply Board) Stereotypes and biases in children’s accounts of what a scientist does CB2 Prof. Fiona Lyddy Misconceptions in Science Iontas Dr. Nikolaos Fotou TeachMeet (ICT and Science) SLT Share Practices and get updates on Educational Technologies

10.45 – 11.00 Tea/Coffee 11.00 – 11.50 Plenary Lecture No title Iontas Marc Ó Gríofa, SFI 12.00 – 13.00 Workshop Sessions 1 Earth and Space/Nature of Science (Part 1) ? Donal Ó Laoire, SFI Real Graphs from Real Data ? Stuart Farmer Talking Science, Thinking Science using Concept Cartoons ? Stuart Naylor The Science on Stage Team - Festival 2017 Project Ideas ? Science on Stage 2017 Team Science Projects – Getting Started ? Sheila Porter Junior Cycle Science – Learning Outcomes in Action ? Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT) Support Service Fun Chemistry Demonstrations for all ? Chemistry Department, Maynooth University Amgen Biotech Experience workshop ? Dr. Robert Schwamborn STEAM in the Classroom ? Science Gallery Dublin led by Dr. Mairéad Hurley 26 26 www.ista.ie

ISTA 55th ANNUAL CONFERENCE 7th − 9th APRIL 2017 Maynooth University & the Glenroyal Hotel Draft timetable

13.00 – 13.40 Lunch ? 13.40 – 14.30 Workshop Sessions 2 Earth and Space/Nature of Science (Part 2) ? Donal Ó Laoire, SFI RSC Learn Chemistry Resources ? Dr. John O’Donoghue, RSC Education Coordinator Amgen Biotech Experience workshop ? Dr. Robert Schwamborn Teaching Inquiry using Mysteries: The TEMI Approach ? Dr Peter Childs and Laurie Ryan Workshop on Leaving Certificate Chemistry practicals. ? Dr. Ken Maddock Perimeter Institute Resources for TY: GPS and Relativity ? Stuart Farmer and Paul Nugent Getting a Great Reaction! ? Graham Hewston “Let’s zoom in” ? David Keenahan Magic and Science: The use of magic illusions to enhance science lessons. Adrian Allan ? 14.50 – 15.35 Plenary Lecture Forensic Pathology Iontas Dr. Marie Cassidy (State Pathologist) 15.50 – 16.20 Parallel Lectures Variety is the spice of Life Science CB1 Dr. Richard Spencer Student-Led Learning in the Practical Laboratory CB2 Dr. Shane Bergin Understanding the Science behind Electricity Generation Iontas Michael Downey/ Pearse Ahern, ESB (Electricity Supply Board) 16.30 – 17.15 Plenary Lecture Climate Change: Education’s New Integrator Iontas Prof. John Sweeney, Maynooth University 17.15 – 18.00 ABM ?

19.30 – 20.00 President’s reception (Glenroyal Hotel) 20.00 – 22.00 Gala Dinner (Glenroyal )

Sunday 9th April 2016 Venue: – The Glenroyal Hotel, Maynooth 10.00 – 11.00 Sparking Creative Thinking through Storylines and Imagineering ? Dr Alan McCormack, USA 11.10 – 11.40 Tea/Coffee ? 11.45 – 12.45 HPV vaccine - Separating Fact from Fiction ? Dr. Brenda Corcoran, Director, HSE National Immunology Office SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 27 Science Day for Primary Teachers

Saturday, 8th April, 2017 Maynooth University

Organised by the Irish Science Teachers’ Association as part of their annual conference, this event will be an opportunity to bring together primary teachers who are interested in developing the teaching of science within their schools.

Attending this event will help you to:  build on your own knowledge and confidence in the teaching of science  meet like-minded teachers who share a similar interest in Primary Science  gain ideas to inspire children and colleagues to enjoy science  become more aware of resources and programmes available to support you in the teaching of Primary Science Talks will include:

‘Treemendous Science’: Investigating a Tree Conquer Your Fear of Teaching Electrical Circuits

The Bicycle: How Does it Work? Exploring Different Types of Science Enquiry Primary Science that is practical and relevant Prof Donal O’Shea: Obesity & Our Children Roller Coaster Fun for Everyone

Space Picnic—Food and Taste in Space with DPSM/ESERO

A fee of €35 (€30 early bird) will cover registration for primary teachers, entry to all talks and lunch. Access to the exhibit area is also included, where science resources companies, publishers and national science programmes will have a variety of stands.

Registration will be online at www.istaconference.com. Website live from January 2017.

The ISTA Science Day for Primary Teachers will run as part of the ISTA Annual Conference for Second Level Science Teachers on Saturday 8th April 2017. The ISTA is a voluntary organisation run for teachers by teachers.

Supported by and 28 www.ista.ie Science Day for Primary Teachers: Some of our Guest Speakers Saturday 8th April 2017, 9.30am—5pm, Maynooth University Speakers Session Descriptions Prof Donal O’Shea: Obesity and Our Children

Inspirational speaker and campaigner on the public health issue of rising obesity levels, Prof Donol O’Shea will share his concerns and insights into the growing problem of childhood obesity in Ireland. Prof. O'Shea is a consultant endocrinologist and physician based in St Vincent’s Uni- versity Hospital and the Conway Institute in UCD. His recent research has focused on the role

of our immune systems in regulating body weight. (This talk will be a joint session for Primary

and Second Level Teachers) Stuart Naylor: How to carry out science investigations in class.

How can we answer scientific questions and develop children’s science ideas? This workshop explores different types of science inquiry: what they are, how they can be developed from different starting points, and how you can build different types of science inquiry into your teaching. It will help you to make science inquiry more manageable in your classroom, as well as

helping your children to learn more about science. Stuart Naylor co-author with the late

Brenda Keogh of Concept Cartoons in Science has produced with Millgate House Education won- derful science teaching resources and books (The Snowman’s Coat, It’s Not Fair or Is It) Scott Ziglinski: Roller Coaster Fun for Everyone Physics should not be feared, it should be embraced. In this session, teachers will design and build roller-coasters with hills, loops and drop-offs. In doing so, they will learn that one of the most fundamental scientific concepts—kinetic energy—is appropriate for all levels of primary education (yes, infants included!). By the end of the session, teachers will be confident they can lead a series of roller-coaster activities in their classrooms. Be prepared to be challenged, be creative and have fun. Scott and his wife, Eddie, run Elementary Engineering, a hands on sci-

ence programme that introduces students to the engineering process and the wonderful world of physics. Úna Leader: Electricity for the Terrified Conquer your fear of teaching electrical circuits in the Primary classroom! This hands on work- shop will go through the basics you need to know to teach Electricity at Primary level. For any- one has every been scared by the thought of taking out the ‘Electricity Box’ or wondered ‘are the children going to get shocks?’. Úna Leader develops and delivers Primary Science Work- shops at Lifetime Lab in Cork City. Paddy Madden: Treemendous Science—Investigating a Tree

Get to know lovely trees on the campus in Maynooth. An outdoor science session "Investigating a Tree" looking at leaves and their function, trunk etc, investigating transpiration with a fair

test and investigating invertebrates using 4 techniques. Participants will get a template of ob- servation for future use in their classrooms, be shown how to use a bud key and how to "adopt"

a tree with children. Educator, environmentalist, local historian and author of ‘Go Wild at School’, retired lecturer in SESE at Coláiste Mhuire, Marino Institute of Education, Paddy now works for SEED: School Earth Education, turning school gardens into living classrooms. Brian Tubbert: The Bicycle. Coming at the primary science curriculum through the question ‘How does it work?’ is a good way of rooting your science teaching in things that are practical and relevant. Brian will take us through ideas for classes based on an item familiar to all children – the Bicycle – using the question ‘How does it work?’ and dealing primarily with strands Energy and Forces and Materi- als. Brian Tubbert is a lecturer in SESE at the Froebel Department of Primary and Early Child- SCIENCE Vol. 52 Numberhood Education, 2, March 2017 Maynooth University. 29 Promoting Practical Science in the Republic of Ireland

Why choose us? ...being responsive to our customers builds trust, combined with our support systems both internally and collaboratively make us the perfect choice...

*Spend over €500 RECEIVE 20% OFF* on your first order... QUOTE KEYCODE: 500ROI16 Contact: Michaela Robinson *Spend over 250 RECEIVE € 10% OFF* QUOTE KEYCODE: 250ROI16 Mobile: on your first order... +44 (0) 7435 966 931 When placing your first order quote Keycode to qualify. Valid until: 31st December 2016 Email: 2017*To be Science used only Journal once during Ad Education promotion. Matters.aiNot to be used 1 in 08/02/2017 conjunction with 10:20:29 any other promotional offers or Framework Agreements. Excludes Data Logging and Batteries. Discount applied to standard ROI prices. [email protected]

0217-16 ADVERT - ISTA Conference.indd 1 17/10/2016 15:27

C EDUCATION MATTERS

M Y YEARBOOK 2016 - 2017 CM

MY

CY PublishedPubli each December, Education Matters CMY YearbookYearb informs, guides and inspires K educatorseduca to reflect on their goals and enjoyenjoy success in their profession.

AvailableAvaila for purchase online at www.educationmatters.iewww

30 www.ista.ie www.educationmatters.iewww.ed | [email protected] SciFest Celebrates Ten Years of Science for All

Sheila Porter

‘SciFest has been a hugely enriching and positive Students from CBS Roscommon experience for the entire school community at SciFest@School St. Mary’s. It provides an excellent opportunity 2017 to get the students actively involved in Science in a fun and engaging way as well as facilitating students and teachers to work collaboratively to An important aspect develop valuable key skills. For an all-girls school of SciFest is that it affords girls an focusing on the promotion of Science, the SciFest equal opportunity experience is a critical support. The joy of seeing to participate in a students showcasing their work and communicating local, stereotype- their ideas to others is immensely encouraging free, non-threatening and motivational for everyone involved.’ environment. Female participation in the programme has risen over the years from 55% in 2008 to 63% in 2016. In SciFest Ms. Evelyn McLoughlin, Principal, St Mary’s 2016 some 56% of the students presenting projects in the Holy Faith Secondary School, Killester, Dublin 5 physical sciences category were female. Looking at the participation numbers and distribution of pring was definitely in the air on 1 February awards by gender in SciFest it’s clear that girls, when given 2017 Science Journal Ad Education Matters.ai 1 08/02/2017 10:20:29 as SciFest 2017 was officially launched in St the opportunity to participate in STEM, perform as well as, Mary’s Holy Faith Secondary School, Killester or indeed better than, their male counterparts. In the SciFest S 2016 national final six of the seven top awards were won by by the Minister for Education and Skills, Richard females, with the overall winner for the first time being a Bruton TD. It was a very special day for SciFest as female student, Caolann Brady. Caolann, from St. Wolstan’s the 2017 programme celebrates ten very successful Community School, Celbridge, Co. Kildare, now goes on years of encouraging second-level students of all to represent Ireland at the Intel International Science and backgrounds and abilities to have confidence in Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2017 in Los Angeles in May. Her themselves, take up the challenge and get involved project focusses on the natural treatment of asthma through in science and technology. It is this inclusiveness humming and breathing and the encouragement of all participants that sets techniques as opposed to using SciFest apart. inhalers and nebulisers. Caolann Brady, St. Wolstan’s Students Community School, Celbridge, from Mary’s Co. Kildare Holy Faith Secondary School The SciFest programme provides an opportunity for all C EDUCATION MATTERS Killester at students to achieve at a level commensurate with their ability the launch M and interest. Participation in SciFest builds self-confidence, of SciFest improves communication and presentation skills and 2017 Y YEARBOOK 2016 - 2017 CM

MY Following CY two very PublishedPubli each December, Education Matters successful CMY YearbookYearb informs, guides and inspires pilot science fairs in the Institute of Technology, Tallaght the K SciFest programme was launched nationwide in 2008 with educatorseduca to reflect on their goals and regional fairs in nine Institutes of Technology and some 1600 students participating. Since 2008 the programme has expanded enjoyenjoy success in their profession. rapidly and in 2016 it included 16 regional (SciFest@College) fairs, 57 local (SciFest@School) fairs and a national final, with more than 8000 students participating. SciFest students have also participated in international fairs in the USA and AvailableAvaila for purchase online at the Netherlands, winning major awards in both cases. In 2016 www.educationmatters.iewww SciFest joined Gaisce, The President’s Award, as a Challenge Partner thus opening up new opportunities for students involved in presenting a project at a SciFest science fair or helping to organize a science fair at second or third level. Students from Ursuline College, Sligo SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 31 www.educationmatters.iewww.ed | [email protected] Exploration Dome – a review

Russell Harris

or science week this year, our school booked a mobile planetarium through a company Fcalled Exploration Dome (explorationdome. ie), which is based in Clare. They inflated their dome in our canteen area (see photo) and we organised six, 50 minute shows, which included all Louis Madden, Largy College, Clones, Co. Monaghan won 2 of our first and second years (264 students in total). major awards at Intel ISEF 2016, bringing to 7 the number of awards won by SciFest students in 5 years participating in the Each show began with a brief description of the solar system competition and the night sky, led by their instructor, Martin. Students sat on the floor while the high-tech projector showed stars, animations and videos on the hemispherical internal screen, encourages the student to think in a critical and independent giving the student a 180 degree view. They then watched a manner. Students select their own problem to solve, usually 25 minute film “We are Aliens”, narrated by Harry Potter’s something they are passionate about. SciFest participation Rupert Grint. This dealt with the possibility of finding life involves real discovery for the majority of students and an elsewhere in the Universe. Exploration Dome has a wide indescribable sense of personal achievement. Most importantly range of movies, on a variety or scientific and environmental SciFest helps promote a positive attitude to STEM and topics, but we chose this one as we felt it would fit in with the encourages the necessary skills and confidence to take STEM new Junior Cycle course. at senior cycle level. Students who participate in SciFest are then more likely to leave school equipped with the necessary Planetariums like this are often seen as suitable for Primary skills for solving real world problems such as food, water and schools, but I would definitely recommend them for second energy shortages. Addressing such global concerns will create level, especially as a way of bringing the space component of and drive the jobs and skills needs of the future. the course to life. The advertised cost is €5 per student, but it worked out closer to 3 or 4 as we had such large numbers. Our SciFest is here to stay and is looking forward to the next ten students thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I was pleased years. The ongoing increase in participation is ample evidence that it touched on many of the topics we plan to cover in the for the value of the programme to schools and teachers. The next few years. buzz, the excitement, the passion, the energy, the commitment, the ingenuity, and the enthusiasm of students as they go about I see that a brochure has just arrived at the school for a communicating the results of their scientific investigations at second company, SkyDome Academy (skydome.ie), based in local, regional, national and international level is more than Westmeath, which seem to offer a similar service at a similar ample evidence for its value to students. cost.

SciFest@College 2017 , Templcarraig School, Greystones, Visit the SciFest website (www.scifest.ie) and enter online or download a paper entry form. Completed entries must be submitted by Friday 10th March.

SciFest@School 2017 Visit the SciFest website (www.scifest.ie) and download a registration form. SciFest@School science fairs can take place at any time throughout the school year.

SciFest is funded primarily by its project partners Science Foundation Ireland’s Discover Programme, Boston Scientific and Intel.

32 www.ista.ie ESERA 2017 Science on Stage Conference, DCU 21st – 25th August 2017 2017 Eilish McLoughlin

ublin City University and the University of Limerick are proud to co-host the ESERA Dconference (European Science Education ight second level science Research Association). It is expected that the teachers will represent Ireland conference will enable you to share your research at the 2017 Science on Stage with an international research community and to E festival in Debrecen, Hungary. Under engage in discussion about the pressing issues in the motto “Inventing the Future science, technology and environmental education of Science Education” the next research. Science on Stage festival, the largest The theme of the conference, Research, practice and European educational fair for STEM collaboration in science education underlines aspects of teachers, will take place from 29th great relevance in contemporary science education research: nd the need to reflect on different approaches to enhancing our June to 2 July 2017 in Debrecen, knowledge of learning processes and the role of context, Hungary. designed or circumstantial, formal or non-formal, in learning At the festival around 450 teachers and instruction. Highlighting these themes does not mean underestimating or neglecting other important aspects of from 30 countries will come science education research and practice. together to present and exchange innovative teaching ideas in a fair, in Dublin City University and the University of Limerick were workshops, and in performances. both established as universities in 1989 and are the youngest of the seven Universities in Ireland. The ESERA conference will The participants were selected be co-hosted by the two largest Irish STEM education research through competitive national events centres, CASTeL at Dublin City University and EPI-STEM at University of Limerick, who are actively involved in in their countries during 2016. More providing research informed pre-service and in-service teacher information on the 2017 festival can education and conducting evidence based research on STEM be found at: curriculum, pedagogy and learning at all levels http://www.science-on-stage.eu There will be 18 strands at ESERA 2017. The Irish team in this year's festival will be http://www.esera2017.org/programme/strands led by Paul Nugent, Each member of the delegation will present a project at the fair. ESERA 2017 Conference Strands: 1 Learning science: conceptual understanding • Paul Nugent, Santa Sabina, Institute of 2 Learning science: cognitive, affective, and social aspects Physics Teacher Coordinator. 3 Science Teaching Processes • Declan Cathcart, Temple Carrig School 4 Digital resources for science teaching and learning – “The Wonderful World of Woodlice” 5 Teaching-Learning Sequences as innovations for science • Sean Fogarty, St. Mary’s Seconday teaching and learning School – “Fun with Electomagnetism” 6 Nature of science: History, Philosophy and Sociology of • Robert Clarke, Confey College – Science “Green Greens?” 7 Discourse and argumentation in science education • David Keenehan, IOPI Teacher 8 Scientific literacy and socio scientific issues Network Coordinator – “Rotation” 9 Environmental, health and outdoor science education • Máire Duffy, Clonkeen College – 10 Science curriculum and educational policy “Homemade Electroscopes” 11 Evaluation and assessment of student learning and development • Enda Carr, St. Marys Secondary School 12 Cultural, Social and Gender Issues in science education Glasnevin – “Zippie Chemistry” 13 Pre-service science teacher education • Nicola Sheehan, Donabate Community 14 In-service science teacher education, continued College – “Numeracy with Knitting” professional development The Irish team members will present their 15 Early years science education projects as part of a Science on Stage 16 Science in the primary school workshop at the ISTA Annual Conference 17 Science teaching and the university level on Saturday 8th April in NUI Maynooth. 18 Methodological issues in science education research Dr Eilish McLoughlin, CASTeL, DCU

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 33 BT Young Scientist & Technologist 2017

Michael Shanahan

n Friday the 8th of January 2016 Shane Curran was awarded the OBest Individual award at BT Young Scientist. While delighted with his success and allowing himself some time to enjoy the moment, his mind was already planning his work for the rest of the year – qCrypt. The extra work paid off and on Friday, 13th January 2017 Shane, a 5th year student from Terenure College, received the award of "BT Young Scientist & Technologist 2017"for his development of ‘qCrypt

Data security It is a project that drew inspiration in particular from recent qCrypt is a cryptographic ecosystem built to preserve secrets developments in the world of electronic privacy, or rather in the interests of peace and security. qCrypt consists of new the lack of privacy in this area. Shane observed the many public key algorithms that are resistant to the threats posed by examples of state-level actors having an over-arching ability to quantum computers, implementing a novel multijurisdictional view any electronically stored communications or material. quorum sharding algorithm. Privacy, so often cited as a fundamental human right, seems qCrypt has a number of components impossible to achieve in the digital world. The controversy surrounding ‘The Belfast Project' was of particular motivation Firstly, Shane developed a new public key exchange algorithm to Shane. He began to explore the possibilities of developing based on the NP-complete Boolean Satisfiability Problem, a mechanism where sensitive research work such as this could with a provable reduction derived from the Cook-Levin be stored without fear of its forced release in order to pursue Theorem. The scheme has been shown to be about 40% faster political agendas. on average than the ubiquitous Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman key exchange system. Shane began his research into the field of post-quantum cryptography and existing data transfer schemes. He began Secondly, he developed a novel data storage system. The to realise that nothing presently provided the level of security system can break up the original data and store pieces of it in a required. So began the development of qCrypt. variety of jurisdictions. This method is genius in its simplicity and Shane calls it “multi-jurisdictional quorum sharding”. Even under duress from courts or other pressures it will not be able to reassemble the data. Only k of n pieces of a “sharded” file are required to reconstruct the original secret. This not only provides a full defence against server failure, but also allows for complete independence from adverse decisions made by international legal jurisdictions. Thirdly, Shane constructed a new scheme for the distribution of secret encryption keys amongst trusted individuals which he calls “steganographic quorum keychain sharding”. This enables keys that have been sharded through the qCrypt quorum sharding algorithm, to be embedded in ordinary photos and images, allowing them to be stored in plain sight. Finally within the project he has also developed a Cryptographic Proof of Life scheme using cryptographic heartbeat signatures to verify a secret’s integrity and mathematically ensure that a secret remains secure for life. The qCrypt platform is one that is easy to use and fast. You see more of Shane’s project at https://getqcrypt.com. Michael Shanahan (teacher), Dr Tony Scott, Shane Curran, Fr. Éanna Ó hÓbain O.Carm., (Principal) and , Mr. Frank Gallen (Chairman of the school board)

34 www.ista.ie Personalising student’s experience

Niall O'Connor

he education technology revolution is have a permanent record of it happening ‘live’. In the picture, continuing apace in Ireland. Whether you are you can see there is a white background which students new to using technology in the classroom can film against. This is useful for keeping a consistent T backdrop for their experiments and to minimise background or more advanced, it is obvious we are preparing distraction in their videos. As the lab can be noisy when there students for a digital space and time. Technology is is experimental work in progress, students are able to record a here to stay and the move to incorporate technology voiceover of the experiment as homework in a quiet space to is an attempt to add further value and learning reflect on their results. experiences to our classrooms. Working in a 1:1 iPad school has afforded me the luxury of creating From a teacher’s perspective the use of technology also saves new and engaging learning opportunities, which time and space. I no longer need to lug heavy exercise books and piles of copy around for assessment and marking. Students would be far more difficult to achieve without share their iTunesU code with me and I can login from my technology. This is a short account of my beginnings tablet at school or home and see all of their experiments and using technology in science, to personalise learning send feedback. for my students. Being given an iPad as a teaching tool, with no textbooks or ebooks, can be a daunting yet exciting opportunity. The potential uses for technology in education are not always apparent to begin with, and in the early stages, trial and error is an embedded practice. Initially I taught the Junior Cert mandatory experiments in the traditional way, whereby students wrote the experiments up in an exercise book. Having taught abroad for ten years before returning to Ireland, I found this style of teaching to be commonplace and so continued to teach in this tried and tested method. I had a problem though. I felt that I wasn’t maximising the use of technology. I questioned why students could not use a digital space to write up their experiments? Why could they not include pictures and videos? Both of which I felt had the potential to provide students with a great revision tool by the end of their Junior Cert course.

There are many ways this could be achieved, with various e-portfolio options available. It was difficult to know which one to choose With the introduction of the new syllabus, the mandatory without actually trialling it out with a live class. I was also experiments are now being replaced, so I am developing wary of how the inspectorate would respond to any chosen new ways to use the iTunesU course whilst also allowing platform used to replace exercise books. It was important to students to create their own personal learning record of lab hear their opinion, so I contacted them and sought permission work. Moving forward, the next step is for my science lessons to replace exercise books with technology. I explained that I to be ‘flipped’ and to continue towards the personalisation felt I could add more value to what the students were doing goal of students driving their own learning. If you are if they were creating their own content and editing it, whilst interested in hearing more or having a chat, I can be contacted at the same time improving their digital skills and digital on Twitter @noconnor_ed or by email at: mroconnor@ citizenship. Thankfully they agreed and allowed me to run a lecheilesecondaryschool.ie pilot where we used tablets instead of exercise books.

So what are the logistics of how does it work? Students create Niall has taught at Le Cheile Secondary School, Tyrrelstown, an iTunesU course. They perform their experiment as normal Dublin 15, since its establishment in 2014. He has represented and then create an iTunesU post for their experiment. They Ireland at the European SchoolNet for the use of technology in take photos of their apparatus and film their experiments and personalised learning and assessment and has already flipped then insert this digital footage into their course. If they get a his maths lessons. colour change for example, this can be recorded and students SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 35 Coteaching Science

Colette Murphy

oteaching, a specialised form of team teaching “The class teacher and I were able to work in partnership to be in which the emphasis is on improving each creative in each lesson and the pupils enjoyed having support other’s learning and skill development as well and guidance from both teachers. They knew when we were co- C teaching science that they were able to go to John [pseudonym] as that of the pupils. In Ireland, there are science or go to myself for help” coteaching projects running in both initial teacher education between pre-service and cooperating Cooperating teachers became more confident to put children at science teachers, and in industry between scientists the centre of science learning: (from universities and from industry) and “Usually our science lessons are very structured and you sort cooperating teachers in primary schools. of take the children along step by step but we decided, right, we are going to let these use their own creativity” Coteaching Science in Initial Teacher Edu- cation Coteaching science can help primary teachers extend their science knowledge and, particularly, their skills in teaching inquiry-based science by working with PME or BEd pre- service teachers who have a science specialism. Post-primary science cooperating teachers can capitalise on recent science knowledge of the science pre-service teacher, who will also bring new scientific ideas and new teaching approaches that they have been practising in College/University. The idea of coteaching is to share expertise such that after a few lessons, both teachers will have developed new skills and practices to use in their solo teaching. Coteaching Primary Science In an attempt to help primary teachers with science and pre-service teachers with teaching, co-teaching between pre- service and cooperating primary teachers was Fig. 3: Children collaborating introduced in Ireland nearly 20 years ago. Coteachers In this picture (Fig 3) children (7/8 year olds) are collaborating attended joint professional to explain, using close observation, why the water settled on development induction top of the syrup and below the oil. They suggested: workshops in which they were introduced into “… there was bubbles in the cooking oil and it is free, like, it inquiry-based science in can move around and then it, amm, lifted up and then the water the primary classroom by went underneath it” science educators. They then implemented the After teaching, coteachers professional development evaluated lessons in terms work from the workshops in of the children’s learning the classroom together. This and their own learning support has helped teachers from each other. Evaluation to be more confident in workshops were held in teaching creative, inquiry- College half way through based science, and has Fig. 1: Learning together the coteaching period given pre-service teachers (usually 8-12 lessons), in confidence to teach which coteachers shared not only science, but their experiences of all the other areas of coteaching and picked up Fig. 4 the primary curriculum ideas from each other (Fig. (Murphy, 2016). 4). Effectively, coteachers The impact of coteaching on primary science has been strong. are learning together One of the less expected findings was that many teachers (Fig 1), then teaching felt confident to give children much more control over their together (Fig. 2). Here’s learning, for example: a comment from one of the pre-service teachers: “They (the children) were driving it and they were just really Fig. 2: Teaching together enjoying having that sort of control and we were just really 36 www.ista.ie stepping back and maybe just trying to give them little bits One school principal reflected: of direction but it was really driven by them and they just absolutely loved it” (primary teacher) The STEAM programme has surpassed our Coteaching post-primary science expectations in… the level of scientific content Coteaching post-primary and insights which the science follows a similar pupils have gleaned; pattern to coteaching the collaborative nature primary science. Pre- of the programme… service and cooperating the professional detail science teachers plan, teach and attention afforded and evaluate together. to the organization… The emphasis frequently feedback meetings and involves implementing other practical elements new curriculum and of the programme… teaching approaches, for Fig 5: Girls enjoying science While at an early stage… example the new junior its impressive fledgling cycle science specification. Coteaching induction precedes efforts bode well for classroom teaching, and involves joint workshops in which the future of science in cooperating and pre-service science teachers work together primary schools. on classroom implementation of new practice. In most of my coteaching post-primary projects, there has also been an The PDST and Team Teaching / Coteaching emphasis on engaging girls in the physical sciences (Fig 5) and in carrying out more lab work (Fig 6). The PDST has recently been supporting several team teaching programmes in initial teacher education, and would like to extend this work to more schools and higher education institutions (HEIs) in Ireland. I believe strongly, on the evidence of working in coteaching in many different settings (including in the USA) that introducing coteaching and/ or other forms of team teaching can foster more exciting, inquiry-based science in all Irish schools. Coteaching provides a pedagogy which supports pre-service teachers more actively and promotes teacher professional development, as they work together in co-planning, co-practice and co- Fig 6: Coteaching labs evaluating lessons during school-based experience. If you would like to find out more about coteaching, I have just Coteaching with scientists published a short book on the subject. STEAM-in-a-box (SIAB) is a coteaching programme which involves (a) induction sessions for primary teacher-scientist teams to explore the materials and co-plan some lessons and References (b) weekly lessons in school at which the scientist arrives with a box of science materials for pupils and the teacher. Murphy, C. (2016). Coteaching in Teacher Education, Northwich: Critical Publishing Ltd ISBN: 978-1-910391-82-2 Each lesson is co-taught by the scientist and teacher, such that the teacher becomes more familiar with the science and Murphy, C., Mullaghy, M. & D’Arcy, (2016). “Scientists are not the scientist with communicating science to children. There always right, but they do their best.” Irish children’s perspectives is no formal assessment, but there are quizzes, games and of innovations in science teaching and learning. School Science presentations from children. Informally, children were invited Review 98 (362) 55-65. to answer some questions from the Junior Cycle science tests (national tests carried out at age 14-16). Some of their answers showed an unusually high level of scientific understanding Dr Colette Murphy, TCD (Murphy, Mullaghy and D’Arcy, 2016). Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics: Education, Thus far, SIAB has introduced a 25-week science programme, Research and Communication a 10-week technology and a 10-week engineering programme into primary schools. In September 2017, the mathematics element will be introduced, followed by the arts programme. More details about the programme can be found at: http:// www.steam-ed.ie. SIAB has been key in enthusing children about science and careers in science by bringing ‘rocket science’ straight into the classroom.

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 37 Jobs-Focused Course News Connect & Discover

Connect & Discover Physical Activity Physical and Health Microbiology Bioveterinary Science

Recent course developments from the Faculty of Science at Athlone Institute of Technology.

• Our Microbiology course is the only designated BSc (Hons) course in Microbiology offered on the CAO system. This jobs-focused course will provide graduates specialised skills in practical and theoretical Microbiology that have direct relevance to industry.

• The Physical Activity and Health degree will equip graduates with the knowledge and skills they need to improve population health. The course also offers a minimum of 24 weeks of practical work placement in a public health setting.

• We offer Ireland’s firstBioveterinary Science degree programme. Graduates may develop their careers in research institutes, in advisory, regulatory and development services, in the agrifood industry and the agrichemical and biopharma industry.

Contact us today to find out more

Microbiology Physical Activity & Health Bioveterinary Science Dr. Carol O Donnell Dr. Aoife Lane Dr. Carol O Donnell Head of Dept. of Life and Physical Science Head of Dept. of Sport and Health Head of Dept. of Life and Physical Science Tel: 090-6468056 Tel: +353 (0)90 647 1895 Tel: 090-6468056 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

Dr. Andy Fogarty Dr. Kieran Dowd Dr. Sile O’Flaherty BSc (Hons) in Microbiology Programme B.Sc. (Hons) Physical Activity and Health Bioveterinary Science programme co-ordinator Course co-ordinator co-ordinator Tel: 090-6471861 Tel: +353 (0)90 647 1895 Tel: 090-6468085 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] 38 www.ista.ie Pocket Know Connect & Discover Jobs-Focused Course News Alex Goodison

Connect & Discover

am Alex Goodison, a 2nd year has received over student at Coláiste Iósaef in 620 downloads with absolutely no I Kilmallock Co. Limerick. advertising. Back in July 2016, I set out to learn how to develop apps and as Augmented Reality a result I developed my first app, is a technology where a computer PocketKnow, as a side project. generated image Before I knew it I was in the RDS is superimposed representing my school at the BT on a person’s Young Scientist & Technology environment. Two Exhibition in January 2017. famous uses of PocketKnow on the App Store Augmented Reality I set out to create a simple and implementation of Augmented Reality would be Pokémon Go and Snapchat’s into learning is a step in the right efficient way to help Junior Cycle Lenses. Through research, I discovered students study and I believe that my direction for Education. The beauty that this technology has not been used of the technology is that it is not app, PocketKnow, is that. The app can in Education here in Ireland before be downloaded today on the IOS App limited to your Biology class. This and I immediately saw an opportunity. could be used in History to look at Store. PocketKnow compiles all of the I looked into how I could possibly use st Physical Activity Physical and Health Microbiology Bioveterinary Science jewellery worn in Celtic times for 1 resources necessary to effectively aid Augmented Reality for education. I a student’s studies all compressed years or it could be used for students noticed that if a student in the average learning their first words in Irish into one app. The home screen classroom nowadays, wanted to learn includes links to videos on topics a in Junior Infants. Just imagine the about something like the heart, they endless possibilities for where this student will study on the curriculum, would be restricted to the 2D image revision notes from various websites could lead the student. That is, most provided by the textbook company probably, one of my favourite parts of Recent course developments from the Faculty of and quick and easy access to the past along with some notes to accompany papers from previous years for the technology — the versatility and range the image. With a 2D image you don’t of who and how Augmented Reality Science at Athlone Institute of Technology. Junior Certificate. I wanted to develop really get the kind of experience PocketKnow for any learner and I can be used. That is the beauty of that you would if you were actually technology. believe that I have done just that. The physically holding that object. In • Our Microbiology course is the only designated BSc (Hons) course in Microbiology offered on the CAO visual learner can benefit from the comes Augmented Reality. I created a informative videos while somebody To download PocketKnow on the system. This jobs-focused course will provide graduates specialised skills in practical and theoretical system where the student could use App Store search ‘PocketKnow’ and who prefers reading can benefit from an iPad to scan a unique code on a Microbiology that have direct relevance to industry. the revision notes. So far PocketKnow then you should be able to download flashcard and then a 3D model would my app for free. If you would like to appear. For example: You are learning discover more about PocketKnow or • The Physical Activity and Health degree will equip graduates with the knowledge and skills they need about the heart and the different parts sign-up to purchase some Augmented to improve population health. The course also offers a minimum of 24 weeks of practical work placement of the heart. With my technology you Reality flashcards go to www. in a public health setting. could scan the code on the flashcard pocketknow.ie where you can find for the heart and then a 3D model of more info about my project or contact the heart would appear on top of the me directly. • We offer Ireland’s firstBioveterinary Science degree programme. Graduates may develop their careers flashcard. You would then be able in research institutes, in advisory, regulatory and development services, in the agrifood industry and the to rotate your device agrichemical and biopharma industry. around the 3D model to get a different view of the heart and you would also be able to scale the heart to see certain parts in detail by pinching like Contact us today to find out more you would to zoom on the screen of your device. Microbiology Physical Activity & Health Bioveterinary Science So why and how do I think Augmented Reality Dr. Carol O Donnell Dr. Aoife Lane Dr. Carol O Donnell should be a regular in Head of Dept. of Life and Physical Science Head of Dept. of Sport and Health Head of Dept. of Life and Physical Science the classroom? As I Tel: 090-6468056 Tel: +353 (0)90 647 1895 Tel: 090-6468056 mentioned, a 3D model Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] with the ability to scale and rotate will provide Dr. Andy Fogarty Dr. Kieran Dowd Dr. Sile O’Flaherty a new perspective for BSc (Hons) in Microbiology Programme B.Sc. (Hons) Physical Activity and Health Bioveterinary Science programme any student learning This is a screenshot of Augmented Reality in use. The any topic. Technology camera on my iPad scans the flashcard and then co-ordinator Course co-ordinator co-ordinator Home screen of PocketKnow Tel: 090-6471861 Tel: +353 (0)90 647 1895 Tel: 090-6468085 is moving forward adds the 3D model of the ribs to the scene Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] and I believe that the SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 39 BioPharmaChem Ireland – Focus on STEM

Sophie Moran

epresentatives of the biopharma industry have “There are lots of different career paths out of STEM come together once again to prioritise the subjects in college. I love science because it’s more than promotion of STEM and careers in Ireland. reading text books. You get to carry out lots of different R experiments to gain an understanding of how things really Ireland has firmly established itself as global hub, with recent capital investments totalling over €4 work. In my job I don’t sit at a desk all day. I go to the lab to solve problems and develop new ideas!” billion. However, only 30% of third level students Niamh Murphy enrolled in STEM related courses in 2016. Process Scientist, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals Furthermore, at present there is only a 38% female representation within the biopharmachem industry in Ireland. "There are many career opportunities for students The promotion of science to female students in particular is studying science subjects in the pharmaceutical industry. something that will need to be consistently addressed in order If you choose a job in the pharma industry you have the to promote a more balanced workforce and meet the expected opportunity to move to different departments with in your skills demand over the next decade. Biopharmachem Ireland chosen organisation and if you join a company like Hovione (BPCI) is committed to creating awareness about the industry you have the opportunity for an international career." among students and teachers alike throughout the nation’s Paul Dunne secondary schools. European Business Development Manager, Hovione. I WISH is an initiative that is aimed at increasing female “Choices, Chances, Changes” – the tagline for I Wish 2017 participation at third level, across all of the STEM subjects. is particularly relevant for the class of 2019! A qualification If you haven’t heard of it yet, no doubt you will by 2018. in STEM will ensure that you are prepared for the jobs of This year the conference style event saw attendance by 4000 the future as advancements in technology & the life sciences 4th year and 2nd year students across four days in Cork and in continue to develop and impact every aspect of our lives Dublin. from how we communicate, to the future of food and meeting medical needs. There has never been a better time for Biopharmachem Ireland supported this event by hosting an students to think about a career in the field of STEM” industry focused stand called the ‘Biopharma Zone’. BPCI Annette Keane BSc member companies took part in the event, with industry Director, LSC. colleagues from AbbVie, Alexion, Amgen, BMS, Eli Lilly, Hovione, Ipsen, Janssen, LSC, Mallinckrodt, MSD, Novartis, “A lot of the TY students that we talked to on Friday were Pfizer and Sanofi all involved. There was representation across 60-70% certain on what subjects they were going to study all business and manufacturing areas. for leaving cert but were just nervous on if it was the right choice. We were able to show the benefits of studying STEM subjects and what opportunities it will open up for them. To hear it from current graduates who are only a few years older than them, made it very real and exciting for them and much more achievable.” Marion Harrington | HR Local Operations for Ireland, Pfizer

“There is such a huge variety of job opportunities out there in STEM for both men and women. Companies like Johnson & Johnson are making a conscious effort to ensure that women are represented well and treated equally in the workforce. We need young girls to have strong female role models to look up to, in jobs that would have traditionally been filled by males.” Gillian Morgan The team from Amgen at the Biopharma Zone at I WISH Dublin Associate Scientist, Janssen Sciences Ireland UC.

The purpose of the Biopharma Zone was to create awareness “Keep your options open by choosing a mix of subjects. A of the industry while opening the eyes of the students in career in STEM is not about working in a white coat in a lab attendance to the abundance of diverse careers that are – the options and career choices are endless. STEM provides available to them, with perks like travel opportunities, career a valuable contribution which impacts people’s lives- you mobility and world class continued professional development. can make a difference with STEM.” The companies themselves got just as much out of the event Miriam O'Sullivan as the students, with excellent levels of engagement. The fact ADL Repatha Product Lead, Amgen Dun Laoghaire. is, making a difference is becoming increasingly important to students as they consider their career options and there’s no doubt that the companies involved are doing just that. Sophie Moran Executive, BioPharmaChem Ireland

40 www.ista.ie Ten personal attributes that you inherit

ou have brown eyes like your mom and 6. Colour blindness from your mother long legs like your dad. Things like this The inability to differentiate between are incredible when you think about it: certain colours is often something that a Y person inherits through their genes. The we inherited every physical attribute from our parents, from copies of their genes. But what other gene which produces it is often inherited by sons from their mothers. For the most things came from our predecessors? Bright Side part, it’s men who suffer from colour (brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/) took a look at blindness. This is due to the fact that the latest research into genetics and discovered some within their genetic makeup, the defect surprising things. Here are ten personal features you of the single maternal X chromosome is not compensated for, whereas women have an "emergency" X inherit from your parents! chromosome from their fathers. 1. High cholesterol levels 7. Lactose intolerance Many people believe high levels of cholesterol are connected with It might sound surprising, but 65% of adults what you eat. If you want to live have a lowered ability to digest lactose, or a long and happy life, you need milk sugar. One particular gene is responsible for this. When a child is still very young and to eat vegetables and fruit and get he needs milk to survive, the body creates an plenty of exercise - or so goes the enzyme for digesting lactose. As that person common belief. But sometimes high gets older, however, their ability to absorb dairy products falls. cholesterol levels actually depend not on our lifestyle but on Only a fraction of people have the gene for lactose tolerance, our genes. About 1 in every 500 people has a special genetic meaning that they can digest milk effectively without any mutation which leads to an accumulation of cholesterol in their problems at any age. blood. These people will have high levels of this substance even if they eat nothing but vegetables. 8. The ability to drive a car 2. Male pattern baldness comes from the What many of us have long suspected has been confirmed by scientists: not everyone has the innate ability to drive a car. mother You can learn all the rules of the road and pass your driving One of the genes that plays a role in baldness is located in the test, but if you have special genes that affect your ability X chromosome. Men inherit it from their mothers. But don’t to orientate yourself, the speed of your reactions, or your rush to blame her for your thinning hairline — there are other memory, then getting behind the wheel may still turn out genes that play a role here, including ones inherited from the to be a bad idea. You’re more likely to get distracted while father. Moreover, environmental factors also have an effect on driving and are therefore at greater risk of being in an accident. hair loss. Scientists believe these genes are in as much as 30% of the population. 3. Academic success 9. Shortsightedness When a mom scolds her child for getting a D at school, and The likelihood that a person has she points out that she did much better in her studies, in or will develop shortsightedness one sense she really has a point. Academic success is 55% is inherited. If both parents have dependent on your genetic inheritance. Thousands of genes are this problem, then the risk of the directly responsible for how well you perform in school. So child developing it is around 50%. if your parents demonstrated outstanding abilities during their However, scientists believe that we school days, you’ve got great potential. can’t ascribe absolutely everything here to genetics. Those who spend less time sitting in front of 4. Love of coffee a computer and avoid straining their eyes are far less likely to Do you drink a lot of coffee? Well, your suffer from shortsightedness. genes are entirely to blame! Scientists conducted a comparative study of people 10. Popularity who can’t live without coffee and those who It might sound unbelievable, but the secret of a person’s can. It turned out that the second group had a particular set of popularity is hidden in their genes. Harvard scientists reached genes which meant they absorbed caffeine more slowly. This this conclusion after long years of painstaking research. They meant that they didn’t feel a particular need to drink it on a believe that at the dawn of humankind’s existence, those who regular basis in order to get a rush of energy. possessed valuable information about food sources or danger were at the centre of a given social group’s attention. These 5. Maturity-onset diabetes of the young people passed on their genes to their descendants. The people who inherited these genes are those who are popular among Type 2 diabetes usually develops among older people. But their peers and who people often want to be friends with. How sometimes it occurs in children and adolescents with an did this come to pass? Perhaps future research will make this active lifestyle. This is known as maturity-onset diabetes of clearer. the young, and it appears as a result of a genetic mutation, See: https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/10-personal-attributes- although a poor diet can also play a role. you-never-knew-you-inherited-from-your-parents-270910/ SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 41

TestWizard ​ ClickerSchool IRELAND

TestWizard.com TestWizard combines hard-copy testing with online testing and assignments. Create your class, ​ create your assignment, and send. Each of your students will have access to their assessments through any web-enabled device, on any browser. It’s the complete classroom tool with instant grading, reports and analysis. Only $66 per subscription and deep discounts for bundles! ​ ​ Subscriptions are per teacher/per subject/per year

ClickerSchool.com engages students in the group learning process with in-class live polls and​ games using clickers, smartphones, laptops, or tablets. ClickerSchool helps teachers gauge content retention, ​ ​ determine individual student/class strengths and weaknesses, and encourages collaborative learning. $44 per teacher/per subject/per year ​ ​

OVER 200,000 QUESTIONS!!

SCIENCE DATABASES

Earth Science AP Biology Life Science Biology (Living Environment) AP Chemistry Physical Science Chemistry AP Physics B/C Science 7-8 Physics AP Environmental Science Science 5-6 Anatomy and Physiology Honors/SAT II Chemistry Science 3-4

[email protected] 1-888-EDUWARE 631-421-9245 ​ ​

42 www.ista.ie Sky and Space: Spring/Summer 2017

Seosamh Ó Braonáin

ere we are continuing Jupiter’s Moons As this issue of Science was going to press, it was announced that this same Liverpool our series focusing on Looking at Jupiter through a small telescope robotic telescope was instrumental in the easy-to-spot sky watching or even binoculars, you should be able to spot discovery of a record number of seven H some of its four “Galilean” moons. These are, Earthlike planets in one extra-solar system. for students and teachers new to astronomy. If you have any in order of distance, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Calisto. They will look like small stars Upcoming events: feedback, comments or questions near the disc of the planet but unlike stars, on this area, please feel free to you will see them change positions as they The BBC has announced another Stargazing orbit Jupiter, if you observe over a few nights. Live series of three programmes, beginning contact the author at jobraonain@ Galileo’s observations of this phenomenon, on 28th March. This year it will be broadcast eircom.net. published in 1610, provided evidence for his live from Australia. support of the idea that the Earth was not the centre around which everything else orbited. There will be a total eclipse of the Sun, visible across the USA, on 21st August 2017. Leo A small partial eclipse should be visible from From February until the summer, the Ireland and I will give more details in the next constellation Leo becomes prominent in the issue of SCIENCE. Southern sky and is fairly easy to identify. The Lion’s head looks like a sickle or References: reversed question mark, with the bright star Regulus at its base. A triangle of bright stars 2017 Guide to the Night Sky by S Dunlop and forms the back legs /tail (see diagram). If W Tirion, Collins/Royal Observatory you follow the curve of the “handle” of the Greenwich Plough or “Big Dipper” away from the “ bowl” you come to the brightest star in the Planet position predictions: YourSky- Northern hemisphere (magnitude −0.04) Fourmilab at https://www.fourmilab.ch/ yoursky/ Arcturus and if you continue on you come to Galileo’s notes on the orbits of Jupiter’s Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Moons (adapted) of Virgo. Galileo’s sketches of Jupiters’ Moons: adapted from Galileo Galilei Siderius Nuncius 1610, accessed from NASA website http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ National Schools Features/OrbitsHistory/ Observatory. National Schools Observatory: http://www. Schools in Ireland have been encouraged in schoolsobservatory.org.uk/obs recent years to make use of Liverpool University’s telescope on La Palma, with workshops at both the ISTA Annual Conference in Limerick and the IOP Frontiers of Physics in 2016. Students can ask for images to be taken by this powerful robotic telescope (with a 2 metre mirror). I have been trialling this with my Transition Year Astronomy group this year. Here I show the results of one observation they made last month. By using image-processing software to adjust the data in the image Looking SouthEast, 10 pm, 20th March 2017 they were sent, they were able to show either some of the cloud bands of the Planets planet or alternatively the Moons (here showing just two of the four). Venus has been very prominent as an “evening star” over the past few months. It is coming closer to the Sun in the sky now so it will be harder to see from mid-March until around mid-April when it reappears as a very bright “morning star”, visible in the Eastern sky before sunrise. Seosamh Ó Braonáin, Jupiter will be visible in the southeast from Wesley College, Dublin mid-March on, after about 10 pm at night. It will stay in Virgo until after May, so it will not be too far away from Spica. (Clocks go forward one hour from 26th March so you will need to look for Jupiter later, from about 11pm, or else in the morning before sunrise Jupiter, showing the cloud bands in the East.

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 43 Astro Quiz: A bit of astronomy and a bit of nonsense.

Michael Grehan

If you are looking for quiz questions on astronomy then 15 A new supernova was discovered by Irish the following may meet your needs. astronomer David Grennan using a powerful telescope located in: Raheny, West Cork, Greenwich, The Pyrenees, The Canaries, Hawaii or The Atacama 1. Name two rocky planets that are in the Solar System. Desert in Chile? 2 A famous director of the Dublin Institute for 16 In The Planets suite by Gustav Holst, Jupiter is Advanced Studies has been mistakenly accused by described, after Roman mythology, as the bringer of some people of murdering a cat. Name him (the what? director not the cat.) 17 Name the branch of mathematics required for CGI 3 The brightest object in the night sky is usually the in cinema, which was developed by a great Irish Moon. What is the second brightest? mathematician who directed Dunsink Observatory. 4 Which is closest to the time it takes for reflected 18 Two great American TV series about the Universe sunlight to travel from the moon to the earth: were made by Carl Sagan over 50 years ago and 1 second, 1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour? by Neil deGrasse Tyson recently. They were both 5 Name a group of stars which was once used on an entitled ……………… Irish flag. 19 Islamic science and mathematics gave us many 6 What do you call a group of stars which form an concepts we use every day. The Islamic scholar imaginary picture in the sky. There are 88 of them. Alhazen made the first systematic study of lenses. 7 What structure in Ireland has been described as the What is the modern name of his country? world’s oldest astronomical observatory? 20 During an astronomy conference in London in 2016 8 Since 1961 over 500 people have flown in space. The there was a lecture about particle physics in the distance from the earth’s surface reached by most of cosmos. It was named in reference to a sketch which them was closest to which of the following: 400 km, was a regular feature of The Muppet Show. Name 4000 km, 40,000 km, 400,000 km or 4 million km? the lecture. 9 Which scientist from Northern Ireland helped to 21 Rocket scientist Werner Von Braun reassured the build a radio telescope and discovered rapidly American people that the space programme was rotating objects called pulsars in 1968? (Any one of guaranteed to make their tax dollar …………….. her three names will get a mark.) (Two words: 2, 7 ) 10 In 1965 Penzias and Wilson discovered CMB 22 There is an Irish company called DC Poultry. (no radiation coming from all directions in space. What really, there is). A physicist might guess that they do the letters stand for? rear ...... hens. 11 Add two words to complete the Bible quotation from 23 A neutron walks into a bar . . . Asks the bartender Psalm 19: "The heavens proclaim the ______how much he owes for his glass of orange juice. The (of) ______" bartender says – In your case sir ………………… 12 In what town was the world’s largest astronomical 24 A photon checks into a hotel. A kind porter offers to telescope from 1845 to 1900? help him with his luggage. 13 Whose name is used for the temperature scale now Photon says : No thank you …………………… standard in science: 25 How does the man in the moon cut his hair? Daniel Fahrenheit, Anders Celsius, Lord Kelvin or 25 How many followers of Ptolemy does it take to Freddy Mercury? change a light bulb? Two, one to hold the light bulb 14 The record breaking New Horizons spacecraft set and the other to ……………………………. out from Earth at 45 km per second. At this speed, 26 Why is the Moon not recommended as a destination how many years would it take to travel to Proxima for your birthday party? Centauri, the nearest star after the Sun? Is it 27, 270, 2,700 or 27,000 years? Michael Grehan, Belvedere College, Dublin.

44 www.ista.ie Where Mici didn’t venture

Paul Holland

ici Mac Gabhann wasn’t afraid to give it a people who were doing the trail – a few families and a group of women aged 17 – 70. The numbers on the trail at any time are limited lash. Born in Cloghaneely Co Donegal in by the authorities, a far cry from the days when the passes were the 1800s, he worked on the Lagan, picked gridlocked and dropping out of the queue, for any reason, might mean M you couldn’t get back into it again for hours. After the first night, we potatoes in Scotland and headed to America. I read found the campsites had wooden platforms on which you fixed your his book Rotha Mór an tSaoil (dictated to his son tent. It made for a better night’s sleep, you wouldn’t be inundated by a in law) – no choice, it was on the Leaving Cert Irish sudden shower and it reduced the threat of ticks. course in 1971. I initially cursed it for the Donegal Irish – almost incomprehensible to me – but once I got accustomed to it, I couldn’t stop. That book was a time machine, the story a destination, and I was a willing passenger. To cut a long story short, Mici was doing well in America when news came through about a gold strike near the Klondike river in Canada. Mici had the means to set out on the Gold Rush. It would be a long journey into a land without much infrastructure. The Klondike was for adventurers who had money to risk – maybe the type who do round the world yacht trips today - if it was mere survival that bothered you, you got yourself a job on the railroad, in the cities or the mines. Mici had a choice of routes. He could go to Skagway in Alaska, haul himself and his gear up and over the Chilkoot Pass into Canada and then go by boat over lakes and down the Yukon river to Dawson in the Klondike region. He balked All tracks ultimately led to the Chilkoot Pass. On the next day, I was at the prospect and went for the softer (still not soft) more hopping over streams, the ground was getting stonier and the trees expensive option. For him it was a sea cruise past the Aleutians rapidly thinned out. Now it was uninterrupted mountain views with up to the mouth of the Yukon – an asses roar from Russia – the Golden Staircase up to the Pass ahead. In winter it’s a steep climb and a riverboat ride right across Alaska to Canada and the up a snowfield. For us it was a huge field of granite boulders, many of Klondike. He met near-disaster on the way but he got there! them as big as or bigger than trucks. You had to use your hands here. Twice I endured the anticipation of coming up to the highest point, or so I thought, only to see another slope rising into the distance. On Being made of sterner material than Mici – plus the fact I wasn’t able the way, we passed what was left of The Scales. Here at the time of to organise a riverboat up the Yukon – I went for the Chilkoot option the Gold Rush, armed Canadian mounties held The Pass. They were in July 2015. Arriving in Juneau, Alaska’s capital, I got the ferry to asserting sovereignty at a border which until then no one had really Skagway. The last hour or so of the trip took us up a silent spectacular cared about. Gold Rush stampeders were forbidden to bring pistols fjord. I met my guide at the quayside and went to the trekking office into Canada – to help keep law and order, also to ensure the mounties where the whole business was prepared for with almost military themselves wouldn’t end up being outgunned. Rifles were allowed precision. A free day followed, maybe to give me a chance for second for shooting game. They also inspected every man’s provisions. thoughts but also to allow me time to travel the tourist train up to and Everyone without exception was obliged to have enough supplies to beyond the summit of White Pass – more on that later. survive unaided for a year. There was a mandatory list of provisions and a mandatory weight of 1600 pounds (about 730 kg). For those It was a 5-day, 33-mile hike (53 km). We drove 16 km to the actual starting point near Dyea, a ghost town now practically obliterated by the forest. Heading off up into the forest along a logger’s trail, brown rabbits scurried away in front of me. In Gold Rush times there were a lot of trails which are now either overgrown or have disappeared under beaver dams. In places I had the advantage of boardwalks, some of them slowly drowning beneath new beaver dams.

Our first night’s camping was near Canyon city – thousands of people lived or came by here but apart from a few old boilers and the remnants of a lift to carry miners’ gear up to the Pass, nothing remains. Next day we carried on upwards through the forest. Bald eagles watched us indifferently. Here and there were tree trunks savaged by bear claws. We could nearly have lived on the blueberries but would definitely have died if we tried some of the red ones (heart stoppers, literally). Native Americans tipped arrows with plant poison to paralyse game animals – fortunately the poison didn’t affect the meat quality. Our second night was at a campground near a rangers’ station – the rangers obligingly regaled us with stories of the Gold Rush and the Chilkoot Pass, a route used before white people ever came here. By now, I was feeling a bit of camaraderie with other

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 45 out of the rat race, maybe going to a town once in a month. We visited abandoned settlements, places which were important when the Yukon was the main transport artery before it was made irrelevant by the building of roads and bridges. One such place was Fort Selkirk. It’s a camp site and museum of restored buildings. Plaques tell the story of missionaries, Indians friendly and unfriendly, the Gold Rush, ferries and of the mounties –who had to be police, firemen, builders, doctors. This town was busy enough right up to the 1930s. In another place, a paddle steamer lies abandoned and, more hauntingly, I saw a few houses which had clearly been active until the 1960s or 70s judging by the furniture and the cobwebbed phones. Times we saw modern towns - and indeed stopped in one to stock up – but these encounters were brief and we were soon into the peaceful landscape again. Of course, we weren’t entirely alone. There were people like ourselves and kayakers. Finding somewhere to camp for the night wasn’t always easy. A good site might be occupied. Currents might be too difficult, shores might be too steep or the forest too dense. We always found somewhere eventually where the only company was the birds, the squirrels and, in one place, the flies.

By the time we reached Dawson, the Yukon was wide and grey. It carried on into the mountains without us – somewhere beyond, I was heading to the gold fields, this meant anything up to twenty climbs told, it broke into a braided stream that was tough to navigate. For me to the Chilkoot Pass (not everyone could afford to use the lifts on at that stage, it was a matter of getting to the hotel. For those over a the way). It was safe to stash provisions at the summit – a general century before me, it was get out as quickly as possible, stake a claim code of honour applied. One or two informal floggings of pilferers and start digging. In fact, by the time most of the stampeders were – not severe physically, but very humiliating – served as further arriving, the best claims were gone. Some people just went home. encouragement. The hard haulage was pretty well over once the More of them worked for the more successful (or luckier) individuals Chilkoot Pass was crossed. After that there were lakes and the Yukon while others found work around Dawson. They were lucky if they river to boat yourself and your gear down to Dawson. broke even on the entire venture. There were those who “mined the miners”. Miners came to Dawson for R and R, their currency being We paused for a while at the top of the Pass. I remembered the White flecks of gold – and were snuggled up to by friendly ladies with well- Pass I had ascended by train a few days before. It was an alternative oiled hair and gentle fingers. Back at their lodgings, the ladies washed parallel route – easier but longer, and better suited to horses. Those that gold right out of their hair. Of course there were also experts with who went the Chilkoot Pass route regretted not taking the White sound financial advice. Old Dawson is pretty well overgrown and Pass. Those who got across the White Pass wished they had taken abandoned now – if stones could tell! the Chilkoot route. There were other routes but they were extremely dangerous. An approach to Dawson from continental Canada to the Back in Skagway, Soapy Smith ran a telegraph office. The only East would have taken forever. problem was that the wires ran into the ground nearby, no further. However, he still accepted telegrams from the newly-rich miners Now, for me, came the hardest part of the trek. We descended across returning from the Klondike and anxious to contact their families. snowfields which were steep, slippy and exhausting to negotiate. A day or two later, there would be a reply – money urgently needed. After that, the ground was very stony. Wide streams thundered and Soapy also ran a courier service. The miners finally set off for home, clattered across the open sloping landscape. I started out doing not knowing the surprise that awaited them..... Soapy was finally Houdini manoeuvres to negotiate the stones across the streams but attended to by a local who had some pride in Skagway’s good name after the first one or two, I didn’t even bother breaking stride going (neither survived the discussion). across subsequent ones – and concentrated instead on enjoying the views. Out of the summit area, we walked by lakes and rivers linking them. Here and there were pieces of boats and equipment, abandoned well over a century ago. Mists rolled by but the weather held. Two more nights of camping remained but now time flew. We were soon back in the forest, passing deserted villages and cabins. On the final night by Loon Lake, I admired the loons in the water.

At Bennett, the White Pass and Chilkoot routes converge and there are tourist facilities. A train took us on to Carcross, riding on narrow mountain cuttings looking down on lakes. My guide took a car back to Skagway (no road in Mici’s day) and I took the bus to Whitehorse, Yukon territory. After a day’s doss, I met another guide and we went to Lake Laberge. There we got on his covered boat for the 6-day ride down the Yukon to Dawson. Now I felt I had re-established contact Mici Mac Gabhann went to All Gold Creek (below) outside Dawson. with Mici and his friends. After they had got their gold, they made A small river flows through a steep unremarkable forested valley their way up the Yukon – the journey I was to do in reverse – and – most likely a lunar landscape in his day. The air was alive with travelled the just-built White Pass railroad to Skagway ... and Seattle mosquitoes. A group of people still work the area and indeed I had ... and for Mici, back to Donegal. no right to be there. They didn’t mind – in fact they talked about the place and the business. I learned that panning for gold was nothing more than a quick check to see if an area was worth exploiting. The next few days were calm ones, apart from the odd torrential The best place for gold is at the river because it is near the bedrock. downpour. We soon left the lake and were on the river, sometimes by The higher up the valley you go, the more you have to dig in order steep cliffs and mountains, sometimes in hilly land with mountains to reach the gold. Fires were lit to melt the permafrost, a slow and in the distance. The water was clear with a blue-green tinge. We tedious process. Holes were dug, extended, roofed and extended meandered by marshes. In places we saw where the bank was clearly again. I climbed down into one of those shafts. Mici was only too glad eroding. Trees were swooning near the water edge. Other rivers to get out of this place and, having got a distant tenuous feel for what flowed in and the Yukon got wider. Moose swam in the river in front he and his likes went through, so was I! of us. On the steep slopes were wild Dall sheep. Paul Holland, formerly Presentation College, Galway We went ashore for various reasons. On one occasion it was to see an Indian graveyard, on another it was to visit people living here to get 46 www.ista.ie Capacitors à la Charlie

Paul Holland

onsidering what we have in electronics nowadays, it Cmight seem a bit dated to talk about a device perfected in the same year as the Battle of Culloden Moor. The Stuart cause died that year but the capacitor was born. Capacitors store electric charge – they can build enough charge to pack a punch in a camera flash, they can absorb surges of electricity which could damage delicate electronic components, they store charge and release it strategically to lessen fluctuations in current, and lots lots more! Anything, yes anything, can be regarded as a capacitor – the trick is getting it to store worthwhile quantities of charge. Leyden Jars were the repulsion between like charges on In summary, for our Leyden Jar developed by the Englishman John a foil means there will be a limit to the Bevis in 1746. They mightn’t be used charge, albeit a larger one, that can be C = ε A / d today any more than the claymore or stored. Where C is the capacitance, i.e. the ability the Highland charge but a look at them to hold charge (measured in coulombs per One can use a bigger bottle and foils volt), A is the area of a metal foil or plate might be a useful tool in explaining with greater surface area – this gives and ε is the permittivity of the intervening the principles of capacitance. room for charges to spread a bit, medium (e.g. glass, plastic, ...) A Leyden Jar is a reducing repulsion while making space glass bottle coated for more of them. Think of where you on the inside and feel more cramped – in a cloakroom outside with metal with 30 people or in a gym with 100. foil. The foils do The glass in the bottle can also be not touch and the made thinner, bringing the positive and outer foil is earthed. negative charges nearer. Now there will A metal rod pushed be greater attraction and the foils will through a stopper be able to retain more overall charge. is used to introduce If the glass is made too thin – even charge to the inner though glass is an insulator – electrons foil (whether from will penetrate it, neutralise the positive a power source, charges and you won’t have a capacitor charged cloth, at all! whatever…). Capacitors have come a long way since the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Although glass is an insulator, slight even John Bevis would probably be Let’s say the charge movement of electrons can take place on the inner foil is flummoxed at what you could show him within it in response to the charges in your electronics kit. But the basic negative, due to electrons. Their natural on the foils. Thus the glass next mutual repulsion limits the charge the principles are the same showing the to the positive foil will be ever so greatest ideas are often the simplest. foil can hold. However, electrons on the slightly negative and the glass next outside foil are repelled into the ground, to the negative foil slightly positive. leaving the foil positively charged. Since Once again, the effect is to counter glass is an insulator, electrons cannot Paul Holland, formerly Presentation the repulsion between charges on a College, Galway move from one foil to the other. The foil – further increasing capacitance attraction between the oppositely charged (ability to hold charge). Permittivity is foils reduces the forces of repulsion, a measure of this movement of charge allowing more charge to be held. (If the in the glass, or any medium. If one References charge on the inner foil is positive due to replaced the glass with materials of Scientific American, July and August 2016 the removal of electrons, electrons will different permittivity, the effects on the flow from the ground into the outer foil, capacitance could be very substantial. Biologist, June/July 2016 making it negative). Ultimately however, (Images 1 & 2 from Wikipedia)

SCIENCE Vol. 52 Number 2, March 2017 47 CROSSWORD

Randal Henly

Clues Across 19. A line of equal atmospheric pressure 9. Occurring or requiring the absence 1. Evangelista, who invented the (6) of free oxygen (9) barometer (10) 31. 0 °C and 101.3 kPa pressure (3) 13. Instrument that measures and records details of earthquakes (11) 6. A colour and a resin (5) 32. A period of 3.16 × 109 s (7) 10. A rodent for the computer (5) 16. The upwards force that a fluid 33. A six prefix (4) exerts on a floating body (8) 11. The first element to be created 34. Spindle passing through the centre artificially (10) 18. A measure of the atomic or of a wheel (4) molecular disorder of a system (7) 12. Change one element into another, as 35. Magnitude (9) was a goal of the alchemists (11) 21. Instrument for holding and picking up small objects (8) 14. Happening or chosen without method or decision (6) Clues Down 23. Group of atoms which behave as a single atom in compounds (7) 1. Fruit used as a vegetable (6) 15. Change directly from solid to vapour 24. Machine that reads printed material and (7) 2. Vegetable used as a fruit (7) converts it to digital images (7) 17. Small round particle of a substance 3. Suffix indicating two elements only 25. Person who takes particular pleasure in (7) (3) fine food and drink (7) 19. Violent atmospheric disturbances (6) 4. Shape a material by forcing it 29. Essential organisation for science 20. Ten for a mesh (3) through a die (7) teachers (4) 22. The shape of the waxing moon (7) 5. Henry Louis, the French chemist of 30. Gemstone consisting of hydrated silica 26. The colour of a fruit (6) Principle fame (2,9) (4) 7. CH OH (7) 27. Part of a circle in charcoal (3) 3 8. There are two each year, on 21st 28. Such tissue is for the storage of fat st (7) March and 21 September (7)

SCIENCE CROSSWORD 75

Clues Across 33. A six prefix (4) 1. Evangelista, who invented the 34. Spindle passing through the barometer (10) centre of a wheel (4) 6. A colour and a resin (5) 35. Magnitude (9) 10. A rodent for the computer (5) Winner — November 2016 The first correct entry was emailed by 11. The first element to be created Clues AislingDown O'Sullivan. (no address given). artificially (10) 1. Fruit used as a vegetable (6) 12. Change one element into another, as was a goal of the 2. Vegetable used as a fruit (7) alchemists (11) 3. Suffix indicating two elements 14. Happening or chosen without only (3) method or decision (6) 4. Shape a material by forcing it 15. Change directly from solid to through a die (7) vapour (7) 5. Henry Louis, the French 17. Small round particle of a chemist of Principle fame (2,9) substance (7) 7. CH3OH (7) 19. Violent atmospheric 8. There are two each year, on disturbances (6) 21st March and 21st 20. Ten for a mesh (3) September (7) 22. The shape of the waxing moon 9. Occurring or requiring the (7) absence of free oxygen (9) 48 www.ista.ie 26. The colour of a fruit (6) 13. Instrument that measures and records details of earthquakes 23. Group of atoms which behave 29. Essential organisation for 27. Part of a circle in charcoal (3) (11) as a single atom in compounds science teachers (4) (7) 28. Such tissue is for the storage 16. The upwards force that a fluid 30. Gemstone consisting of of fat (7) exerts on a floating body (8) 24. Machine that reads printed hydrated silica (4) material and converts it to 19. A line of equal atmospheric 18. A measure of the atomic or digital images (7) pressure (6) molecular disorder of a system (7) 25. Person who takes particular 31. 0 °C and 101.3 kPa pressure pleasure in fine food and drink (3) 21. Instrument for holding and (7) picking up small objects (8) 32. A period of 3.16 × 109 s (7) einsteinTMTablet+2

The new and improved, all-in-one einstein™Tablet+2

10 Internal Sensors: Features: • UV • Android™ OS • Light • Quad-core processor • Temperature • 8.9” Zero Gap IPS Capacitive screen • Heart Rate • MicroSD card slot • Humidity • Webcam x 2 (front and back) • Accelerometer • 8 MP back camera with flash • GPS/Location • Output resolution - up to 4K • Microphone • WiFi • Sound • Bluetooth4™ • Barometric pressure • Long Lasting Battery

• Includes MiLAB™ data analysis app, for advanced data collection. • Contains 10 built-in sensors, commonly used in most science curriculums. • Four external sensor ports that can connect up to 8 external sensors, from over 60 in the einstein™ catalogue. • Includes einstein™ World app, giving access to endless activities from the einstein™ Activity Store • Enables students and teachers to design their own experiments using einstein™ Activity Maker™ • Supports applications compatible with Android OS.

Shaw Scientific Barryscourt Business Park Darren Cunningham Seamus Amond Carrigtwohill, 086 858 3374 086 831 0131 Co. Cork [email protected] [email protected] 021 488 2388

ALBERT EINSTEIN and EINSTEIN are either trademarks or registered trademarks of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Represented exclusively by GreenLight. Official licensed merchandise. Website: einstein.biz © 2017 Fourier Systems Ltd. All rights reserved. Fourier Systems Ltd. logos and all other Fourier product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of Fourier Systems. All other registered trademarks or trademarks belong to their respective companies. Imagine your Classroom Wireless

Simplify your lab setup by removing the clutter of cables, log data on the sensor and transmit it directly to computer, tablet, iPad, Chromebook and smart phone.

2 4 7 3 1

5 8

9 6

1 Wireless Temperature 2 Wireless pH 3 Wireless Carbon Dioxide Measure small but significant temperature changes Capture high accuracy continuous or point pH Measure the concentration of Carbon Dioxide gas produced by chemical reactions, convection measurements. Study water quality, test household in a closed system or open environment. Study currents and even skin temperature with this durable, solutions, and perform high-resolution acid-base core topics with this versatile probe. CO2 data can high-resolution sensor. titrations. be logged directly on the device for long term life science and environmental science studies.

4 Wireless Pressure 5 Wireless Light 6 Wireless Current Measure pressure of reactions, enzyme activity The most versatile light sensor we’ve ever made, it is Measure currents of up to 1 A with built-in protection and atmospheric pressure changes with a weather like having five sensors in one! Measure illuminance, for the sensors against overload. Up to 1000 sam- balloon. Use together with the temperature sensor to irradiance, UVA, UVB, UV index and features RGB ples/second via Bluetooth. Up to 100,000 samples/ explore gas laws colour detection. second via USB in “burst mode”.

7 Wireless Conductivity 8 Wireless Voltage 9 AirLink Wirelessly measure both conductivity and dissolved Measure voltages of up to 15V with built-in protection Connect any one of over 80 PASPORT sensors solids with all-new design. Highly accurate with a fast for the sensors against overload. Up to 1000 sam- wirelessly to your Bluetooth® Smart device. response time and featuring built-in temperature ples/second via Bluetooth. Up to 100,000 samples/ compensation. second via USB in “burst mode”.

For more information or a demonstration contact us today on 01 460 6700 or email [email protected]

www.lennoxeducational.ie