Announcing the ReelLife Science 2013 Primary School Winners

After much deliberation from our Special Guest Judges, we’re delighted, as part of Science Week 2013, to announce the Top Three videos at Primary School level in the very first ReelLife Science video competition.

In third place, under the “Our Bodies” category, we have a video about our Five Senses, focusing on the sense of touch. The video was made by the Junior and Senior Infants class in Belmont National School, Milltown, with the help of their teacher Ms. McGrath. The video covers the topic extremely well, with wonderfully demonstrated examples of all our senses, as well as some lovely poems about our sense of touch. The school runs a fantastic blog about all of their activities, including science and maths projects, school visits and tours, and have already featured their wonderful ReelLife Science video there! Ms. McGrath will receive over €100 worth of scientific equipment and resources for her school’s Science program.

In second place, under the “Keeping Healthy” category, we have a video about dealing with germs, featuring a catchy musical number called “Germ Busters”. The video was made by the students in Cloghans Hill National School, Tuam under the guidance of their teacher Ms. Mangan. This instructional video classifies the germs we are likely to meet on a daily basis, and shows us the benefits of handwashing and disinfection. Like Belmont NS, the school runs a really informative blog about all of their activities, as well as a dedicated page for their wonderful garden, and a Twitter feed with almost 100 hundred followers. Let’s see if we can get them a few more… Ms. Mangan will receive over €150 worth of scientific equipment and resources for their school’s Science program.

Finally, in first place, under the “Habitats” category, we have a video as Gaeilge about Seed Dispersal called “Scaipeadh siolta i Rosmuc”. This memorable video was made by the 5th and 6th class students in Scoil Mhuire Rosmuc, under the direction of their teacher Ms. Ni Chonaola. The wonderfully produced video comes with an extremely impressive script, to which Ms. Ni Chonaola was kind enough to provide an English translation for non-Irish speakers. The students took a very specific topic in Seed Dispersal and Germination, and produced three very amusing and informative sketches demonstrating different methods of dispersal. Furthermore, they performed some experiments of their own on the various seeds they found, identifying the different traits associated with them, based on their method of dispersal.

Overall, this outstanding production proved a worthy winner of the inaugural ReelLife Science competition. We hope the 5th and 6th class students in Scoil Mhuire Rosmuc enjoy spending their €250 on promoting science and science communication in their school.

Honourable mentions go to two other videos, a School Survey carried out by Mr. O’Meachain’s 4th and 5th class students in Gaelscoil Riabhach, Loughrea and a “Tour de Body” performed by Mr. McNamara and Ms. Glynn’s 5th and 6th class students in Scoil Padraig Naofa, Claregalway.

As with the videos mentioned above, these two videos have been selected by the judges to be shown to the general public at the Galway Science and Technology Festival exhibition on November 24th.

Well done to everyone who took part.

If you liked these videos, please share them with your friends to show them how Science can be fun at any age!

The Secondary School winners can be viewed here.

ReelLife Science is supported by the EXPLORE Innovation Initiative and the College of Science at NUI Galway, as well as the “I’m a Scientist…Get me out of here, Ireland” program. Additional prizes were kindly supplied by Lennox Educational, Medical Supply Company and Junior Scientist, in the form of annual subscriptions to their Primary School science magazine.