Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) had an amazing fun filled and jam-packed Science Week, our phenomenal team of inhouse scientists led by Dr. Suzanne Linnane and Dr. Caroline Gilleran Stephens got to meet and greet nearly 900 young primary school scientists of the future both on and off campus during this national event. Both Caroline and Suzanne expressed their delight to be able to welcome children back to DkIT campus after 2 years of delivering workshops online.
Science Week is an annual week-long event in Ireland which is held each November and has the aim of celebrating science in our everyday lives. The week includes a wide variety of events involving industry, colleges, schools, libraries, teachers, researchers, and students throughout Ireland. Running every year since 1995, the week-long event is supported by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and aims to promote the benefits of learning about science.
DkIT’s Science Week events included participation in the Cavan Monaghan Science Festival where our H2O Heroes team facilitated hands-on water workshops where families got the opportunity to explore the catchments that they live in. The DkIT Cell Explorers team took part in Louth Science Festival and facilitated Fantastic DNA workshops with 3rd and 4th class children from Dun Dealgan National School and 6th class students from CBS Dundalk. During these workshops, the children all successfully extracted DNA from bananas and asked lots of interesting questions during the Q&A section of these sessions.
Caroline, Suzanne and their team of volunteers also took their science roadshow to St. Olivers National School in Blackrock, St. Anne’s National School Baileborough, Co. Cavan and Scoil Mhuire National School in Navan where they held Fantastic DNA and Little Cells workshops as part of the SFI funded Cell Explorers science outreach programme.
The pinnacle of DkIT’s Science Week celebrations was held on campus and involved the ‘Water-Shaping our Future’ event which was run over 3 days and saw 450 primary school children take part in fun filled and interactive workshops. Suzanne, Caroline and the rest of the H2O Heroes took to the stage to deliver an action-packed all-singing, all-dancing water themed show. Following the show, the H2O Heroes facilitated a series of hands-on water workshops over 3 hours. This event was funded directly by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and supported by the Local Area Waters Programme (LAWPRO) as part of their schedule for National Science Week 2022.
Edel Healy, Head of School of Health & Science said “I experienced some of the fun filled activities and events during Science Week and as a scientist myself I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed them. I was so delighted to talk to attending children and get feedback like ‘We thought Science was boring, but it’s cool!’ to ‘This is the best day of school ever’. The future of science is very bright looking at all the happy faces that left DkIT campus after attending the workshops”
