Science Week Ireland 2011

Email this page to a friend

2010 Activities

Space Quiz

As part of this year’s theme for Science Week, ‘Our Place in Space’, we have partnered with Blackrock Castle Observatory and the Armagh Planetarium to develop some great Space quiz questions that can be used in the classroom or at home to hold your very own Science Week quiz competition. Questions and answers are on separate PDF sheets to download below. Don’t forget that if you are holding a class quiz you can upload it as a Science Week event from the middle of September, and simply select it as an invite-only event.

Once you have uploaded an event, you will be sent a confirmation email with your event details, within which you will receive a link through to the Science Week merchandise order form. There you can order your free Science Week goodies, which could be used as quiz prizes! Be quick though, as the deadline for ordering merchandise is October 20th.

Download Space Quiz Questions
Download Space Quiz Answers

(382 and 534 Kb PDF)
Are there Aliens in your Kitchen?

Have you ever imagined what an alien looks like? Now you can create your very own alien in your kitchen and make it explode!

(PDF 758 Kb)
Word Search for Primary School

How fast can you find all the planets & dwarf planets in the solar system?

(PDF 957 Kb)
Earth: The Little Blue Planet that we call Home

Tell the time using a simple sundial in your garden or playground.

(PDF 430 Kb)
Lift Off! the Balloon Rocket Race

Forces can make things move faster, slower, change direction or stop. Find out more about how forces work by building a balloon rocket with this activity!

(PDF 443 Kb)
The Great Big Science Week Debate

So you want to be a whacky scientist and have some fun? The first step is to question everything. A scientist's favourite words are 'What, Why, Where, When and How?'

(PDF 495 Kb)
2008 Activities

Kitchen Chemistry with Sue McGrath

Sue McGrath introduces her four wonderful kitchen experiments.

Safety First:
Please remember to get help from an adult!

Sue McGrath Introduction.
Newton's First Law of Motion

First Law of Motion.
Forces of Air

Forces of Air.
Crazy Chemistry

Crazy Chemistry.
Exploding Gases

Exploding Gases.
2007 Activities

The Foaming Volcano

This experiment uses just a few ordinary household chemicals from your kitchen to turn a glass of coloured liquid into a frothing “volcano” that overflows its container.
The Floating Bubbles

Soap bubbles are beautiful and captivating, but because they are so light and fragile it can be very hard to observe them closely or for more than a few seconds. They blow away on the breeze, or if you are making bubbles in still air they soon settle down on a surface and pop.
Putting a Needle through a Balloon

We all know that you can pop a balloon with a needle. But how can you put a needle through it without popping it?

These two kitchen experiments are not just cool party tricks — they show some interesting science too.
The Cabbage Juice Indicator

Some acid can be very harmful and dangerous, but many ordinary things in you kitchen have acids that are relatively safe, such as orange juice or vinegar. Acids and alkalis have the ability to change the colour of certain vegetable materials. So this experiment uses an ordinary red cabbage to find out if a liquid is an acid or an alkali.
Five things you didn't know about… your radio

Like many great inventions, from the bicycle to the computer, there was overlapping work by many scientists, so it’s hard to say that radio was invented by one individual. One of the leading early pioneers was the inventor Guglielmo Marconi from Italy, who was half-Irish. His mother was Annie Jameson, granddaughter of the founder of the Jameson Whiskey distillery, his wife was also Irish.
Five things you didn't know about… your MP3 player

The first mass-produced one is 10 years old this year. The world’s first mass-produced hardware MP3 player was Saehan’s MPMan, sold in Asia starting in the late spring of 1998.
Five things you didn't know about… your bicycle

Dublin had the first bicycle tyres. The Frenchman De Sivrac built the first bicycle-type vehicle in 1690. It was referred to as a hobby horse, but it did not have pedals — or tyres.
Five things you didn't know about… your garden

Worms are hard workers. Earthworms are among Ireland’s greatest gardeners. There can be as many as five million of them under an area the size of the pitch of Croke Park.