2015 Press Releases
Do you walk like a dinosaur?
Do you want to become a champion footballer? Or check if you walk like a dinosaur? Or find out about medieval medicine?
All will be revealed during Science Week 2015 as UCC hosts a myriad of science activities that are devised to be as entertaining as they are educational. The staff at Tyndall National Institute will explain the physics of football - how to analyse the game and dissect moves into calculations in Mardyke Pavilion. Students afterwards will try out their new found knowledge on the soccer pitch putting theory into practice.
Visitors to City Hall can have their gait checked to see if they walk like a T.Rex or a Velociraptor. Staff from the School of Biological & Environmental Sciences will be on hand at the UCC stand with real fossils, a fossilisation game and will encourage visitors to try on some dinosaur feet.
Or students could move into more modern times with Dr Death and the Medieval Medicine Show organised by the College of Science, Engineering and Food Science.
The links between food and our health will be explored in the Funky Food workshop where students can learn about what happens to the Shreddies that they ate for breakfast. This is hosted by the APC Microbiome Institute at UCC and visitors will also be able to walk aournd an inflatable tunnel of the digestive system in Alimentary Adventures.
See below for programme.
Tyndall National Institute at UCC – Design your future
Monday 9th
Event: Physics of Football workshop
Location: UCC Mardyke Arena & Pavillion
Time: 11am-1pm
Audience: 1st year secondary school students
Content: 1st half 40min classroom session led by Tyndall volunteers on the physics of football – how to analyse the game, and boil moves down into calculations in Mardyke Pavilion. 2nd half on pitch session led by UCC Soccer and UCC Sport Studies on how to put the moves into practice.
Event: TARA Light Workshop (organized by Blackrock Castle)
Location: Blackrock Castle Observatory
Time: 10am-1pm
Audience: Primary school
Content: Light workshop and demonstration session on light and photonics to celebrate International Year of Light.
http://www.bco.ie/2015/10/swschools/
Tuesday 10th
Event: Light Up Your Future workshop (funded by SFI/French Embassy)
Location: Skibbereen library
Time: 11am-12pm
Audience: Primary school students (5th/6th class)
Content: To celebrate the International Year of Light, this is a workshop all about light, in particular about polarization, a strange trick of light originally identified by a Frenchman in the 19th century. For this workshop, students will learn about polarization and make their own secretly colourful polarization art to take home.
Wednesday 11th
Event: ChemNet Careers in Chemistry (funded by Royal Society of Chemistry)
Location: B.017, Tyndall National Institute
Time: 10am-1pm.
Audience: 2nd level students (5th/6th year)
Content: Careers session designed to highlight to student the range of careers related to chemical sciences. Consists of short 15min presentations, followed by panel of questions for students.
Thursday 12th
Event: TARA Light Workshop (organized by Blackrock Castle)
Location: Blackrock Castle Observatory
Time: 10am-1pm
Audience: Secondary school
Content: Light workshop and demonstration session on light and photonics to celebrate International Year of Light – using Photonics Explorer kits.
http://www.bco.ie/2015/10/swschools/
Saturday & Sunday 14-15th
Event: Cork Science Festival
Location: City Hall, Cork
Time: 11-5.30pm
Audience: General public
Content: Tables for Tyndall and IPIC next to each other. Content for both will have a “making” theme.
Tyndall table: littlebits electronics kit, renewable energy car, 3D printing, molymod chemistry structures, conductive ink
IPIC table: photonics kits, make your own spectroscope, polarization art, modulating laser, tetris blocks
The College of Science, Engineering and Food Science including Dr Death and the Medieval Medicine Show and a host of other talks and shows
http://www.ucc.ie/en/sefs/sciwk2015/
APC Microbiome Institute at UCC Science Week Activities
What do you think happens those Shreddies you just ate for breakfast? In our Funky Food school workshops (10-12 year olds), children will learn about the passage of food through the digestive system as it turns that delicious food into something that doesn’t look quite the same going out as it does going in…. Knowing what happens the food you eat every day encourages a food awareness and helps to promotes healthy eating.
Learn about computers, how they work, why we need them and how they contribute to APC research on the microbiome in our interactive school talk "George Boole; who do you think you are" (10-12 year olds)
Meet APC researchers on Wednesday in Honan Plaza in UCC at UCC Health Matters Day 11am-2pm Learn all about APC research on how gut bacteria influence our health.
At the weekend 14-15 November, meet APC researchers, explore Alimentary Adventures, APC’s walkthrough inflatable tunnel of the digestive system, try out My Gut Feelings App for Microsoft Kinect and catch up with APC researchers at Family Days at Cork Science Festival in City Hall on Saturday 14th & Sunday 15th November 2015.
More http://apc.ucc.ie/events/discovery-cork-science-festival/
Blood and Brainwaves Roadshow – become a ‘bloody detective’
UCC research Centre INFANT is running workshops (via Cork Science Festival) and visiting schools in Cork. The Centre has organised a “Blood & Brainwaves” roadshow that lets children see the kind of work INFANT does by becoming a “Bloody Detective” and looking for mystery molecules and also seeing how electric our brains are (linked with the baby brainwaves EEG work we do here).
They will also be visiting CIT Blackrock Castle Observatory on Fri 13th for their Science Careers exhibition for second level students.
More http://www.infantcentre.ie/science-week-9-20-nov-2015/
Using satellites to understand climate change
The MaREI research centre at UCC will be discuss how we can use satellites to understand climate change every morning next week in Blackrock Castle. This will be part of Blackrock Castle’s Science Week – Public Events and will run from 10am to 12:30pm every day.
ESA’s Climate Change Initiative focuses on how vital satellites are for understanding climate change, and how space is playing a major role in climate research and climate change mitigation. Researchers from MaREI use this data and will be here to run a series of visualisations on space and climate while discussing their work measuring the ‘essential climate variables’ – 26 out of 50 are measurable only from space – and how researchers in Cork are affecting change.
Schools workshops on renewable energy in Cork City Library on Tuesday 10th Details available here here http://www.science.ie/events/find-events.html?search=1&text_search=marei&start_date=&end_date
And here http://www.ambafrance-ie.org/Everlasting-energy
The Earth Observation group in MaREI are running schools workshops in BCO on the use of satellites Climate Change monitoring http://www.bco.ie/2015/10/swschools/ as well as a public event on the topic http://www.bco.ie/2015/10/swpublic/
Some of our researchers are featured in the Smart Futures ad which is currently airing in cinemas in the run up to Science Week. The video is available here http://www.smartfutures.ie and some of their career profiles are also featured.
More http://www.bco.ie/2015/10/swschools/
Chemistry Magic Show
The ever popular Chemistry Magic Show will take place on Friday 13th November 7.30pm. Tickets should be booked with brendanrupertfanning@gmail.comPlease specify the number of tickets that are required. The magic show will be filmed and put on YouTube for all to enjoy.
Spectroscopy in a Suitcase - Tuesday November 10th More http://www.ucc.ie/en/chemistry/outreach/sias/
Walk Like a Dinosaur
City Hall Sat 14th –Sunday 15th November 11am-5pm . At the main UCC stand there will be an exciting interactive event called ‘WALK LIKE A DINOSAUR’ which will feature real fossils, a fossilisation game, and of course the chance to don some dinosaur feet and make a dinosaur trackway. The scientist will then assess gait of visitors and reveal whether they walk like a T. rex, a Velociraptor, or anything in between!
Public Lecture
Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Communicating Geology to Society with Professor Iain Stewart
Weds 11th November Boole 4 at 6.30pm
Women in Science past, present, future
Date/time/location: Cork City Hall 14th-15th November
Poster display featuring women in science from the past and present; future scientists are asked to write themselves into the future of science adding what they like about science, would like to study further or invent.