Science Week 2015

Julia Marzoni and Pat Lacey From Merck came in to speak with us. 

Today we were fortunate enough to have a presentation by Pat and Julia from MSD as part of our Science Week.

Julia spoke to us about the history of medicines, from natural remedies such as tree barks used in ancient times to modern pharmaceutical. She spoke about John Snow’s identification of cholera, of Louis Pasteur’s research in microbiology, and his chance discoveries of penicillin.

Pat discussed the operations of a modern pharmaceutical facility, like the M.S.D factory at Rathdrum. He compared the operation of the factory to bread making. I found this a great description very useful in helping me to understand exactly how the batches of tablets and medicines are made.

We were very fortunate to get to talk to Julia and Pat about the interesting jobs in science.

By Adam

Science Week

On Monday 9^th of November 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th & 6^th had a speaker come in and talk to them about engineering. The lady’s name was Karen and she talked to us about engineering. Karen showed us videos about engineering, the video was about when you wake up to an alarm. Engineers have made and invented that you have toast for breakfast. Engineers have made the toaster eg Karen showed us pictures of when she worked in Jaguers Land Rover in England.

She showed us all the tests she did on the cars like the water test when she drove really fast in a car around a wet motorway and tested which tyres were best for that test. She did a really good job and I learned loads!

Ø  Being a Mechanical engineer means they work with cars and engines and robots or factory machines.

Ø  Engineers think a different way to normal people do.

Ø  Engineers are always thinking what they can do to make the world better.

Ø  You would have to be good at maths to be a engineer.

Ø  Some engineers work on making bridges and structural engineers.

Ø  It takes four years of study at college to be a mechanical engineer.

By Zoe

Engineers

On Wednesday Catríona came in to talk to us about engineers and what engineering is all about.

Basically what engineering is, is fixing problems in our homes or making things possible so hopefully in the future we could have hoverboards etc

Catríona is a software engineer so she works with computers. She does alot of coding with her work. Coding is basically telling the computer what to do and how to react in different situations.

*        Maths is an important subject if you won’t to be an engineer

*        Coding is telling a computer what to do

*        Engineers fix problems, they ask the questions.

*        Software engineers do lots of coding.

*        To be an engineer you have often to travel alot to work with different people

*        There are lots of types of engineers like civil engineers who design roads and bridges, mechanical engineer who make and design cars and robots, software engineers who programme computers and chemical engineers who work with materials.

By Laoise