Science Communicator Challenge (5th and 6th year Physics Students)

To Celebrate Science week. All physics students in our school competed in a science communicator challenge.

Blast from the Past! Some old photos I came across ofsome of our budding science students ;-)

 Science week Prize Winners

 Winners of the Science Challenge Quiz in the Canteen

Young Scientist Finalists relaxing after a hard days judging! 

 63 days to go...to SPace Camp! He's very Excited!!

 Ms Lewis with some of our young scienctist Finalists, at a party thrown in their honour. That year we had a record number of projects get to the final of the competition.

 1st Year Chemistry Team scoop award in Tallaght I.T.

 Karl Kendrick, Shane Killeen and Robert Kinsella

1st Year Chemistry Team

The very First......1st year Chemistry team!! 

 Bottle Rockets ready to launch!

 Tamara Werder, Chris Melody and Robert Kinsella ( Junior Science Spelling Bee Winners)

Vanessa Ivory, Brian Ormonde Murphy ( Senior Winners of the school Science Spelling Bee)

The Big move into Glenart College!!

We are very close to moving into our top of the range, state of the art, school building. 

We are very excited about this, as we have been waiting for this for so long and finally it is really happening!!!!

 

 From a science teaching perspective. there will be 4 fully equiped science laboratories and a demonstration room with tiered seating....will look something like the picture below. How cool is that ?

 

 

Young scientist Final 2015

 

“The Happiness Project: An Investigation into the effect of a Positive Psychology campaign on students and teachers at Arklow Community College”

 

by Maciek Smyk , Maedbh Murphy and John Naik (2nd Year students)

We all strive to be happy but sometimes negative thinking can get in the way of us feeling good about ourselves and life. The World Health Organisation (2004) is predicting that depression alone will be one of the greatest health problems worldwide by the year 2020. Did you know? Research has found that about 11% of teenagers have a depressive disorder by the age of 18. (National Institute of Mental Health)

The idea for this project came to us, as we were preparing for our annual “Mental Health week” in our school. People are very good at looking after their physical health and we began to think that maybe people do not pay as much attention to their mental health. In this project our aim is to find out the current state of happiness of students and teachers in our school and to promote positive mental habits in our school via “The Happiness Project” Campaign. In this project we will carry out the following:

1.      Research

We will research the science of happiness. What happens in our brain when we are happy? What is positive psychology and mindfulness and how can it help us change how we feel? What are the benefits of meditation? Does feeling gratitude help us be happier about ourselves? Can changing how you think really change how you feel about yourself?

2.      School Survey on the Happiness of students and teachers in our school

We will create an online survey to measure the happiness of people (300) in our school, and analyse the factors that affect their happiness. This survey will help us uncover the overall mood of our school.

3.      “The Happiness Project” Campaign

In this 6 week campaign we will promote a number of positive actions . We will measure their effectiveness on students and teachers by carrying out a pre-test and post-test on all actions.

·         Gratitude Journals: It has been scientifically proven that one of the greatest contributing factors to overall happiness in your life is how much gratitude you show. 25 students and 10 teachers will actively use a gratitude journal daily, noting at least 5 things they are grateful for each day.

·         Meditation: We will introduce 25 students to 5 minutes of mediation per day, using relaxing music. We will also invite any student in our school to a 10 minute lunch time meditation session in the library over this 6 week period.

·         Mindfulness Workshops:

Mindfulness is a technique involving living in the present moment. 25 students will take part in an 8 mindfulness workshops in our school.

·         What I like about you….. Certificate  

We all have positive characteristics about ourselves but we don’t always hear it said to us. In this part of the project, 50 students are invited to write positive comments only about each student in their class. This list of comments will be presented back to the student in a certificate form. We will ask 25 teachers and staff to do the same.

·         Random Acts of Kindness

50 students in our school will commit to carry out 3 random acts of kindness per week. We will ask all students how it made them feel to do this and how it made the other person feel.

·         Positive Quotation Posters

We will create positive affirmation posters and display them on the doors of all toilets in the school and on the walls.

4.      “The Happiness Project” Website:

We will create a website to promote positive thinking and show our progress and results of our campaign.

 

If how we think has an effect on how we feel, then it is really important that teenagers learn the skills of using positive psychology in school, to help them be mentally healthy and happy.

 

 



Arklow Community College students attend Chemistry Camp in York University

 (Left - Right: Niamh Cloran- Doyle and Rebecca Lyons)

This Summer, while most Junior Cert students will have their heads out of the schoolbooks, two students from Arklow Community College will be busy brushing up on their Chemistry at an academic camp in England. 

Niamh Cloran-Doyle and Rebecca Lyons have both won school scholarships to a 3 day residential Salters Chemistry Camp, held in the University of York from 13^th- 15^th August. The girls are really looking forward to spending three days and two nights at the University of York, staying in the University Halls of Residence, and using the laboratories. They will carry out new, exciting experiments, and have the chance to delve into areas of chemistry that are perhaps not covered at school. In the evenings, practical work in the labs is put on the back burner, and students will enjoy a variety of social activities like a fun quiz or tenpin bowling.

This is not the first time Arklow Community College students have taken part in Chemistry Camps. Previous scholarship winners for Chemistry Camps in Swansea University and the University of Manchester include Gary Long, Kyle Connolly-Carey and Brian Ormonde- Murphy.