| | | |  | Scifest 2012
| | | By Ms. A. Woods
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In March the school hosted its inaugural Sci-fest@school event. On display were over 40 projects outlining the results of science investigations carried out by First Year Science students, as well as 24 Science safety posters. Thanks to our judges Ms. Clare O’Keefe, Ms Mary Whelan and Ms Sheila Porter from INTEL.
The winners went on to represent Santa Sabina at scifest@college in DIT where one of our students, Niamh O’Mahony, was a prize winner. Well done to all First Year Science students and hopefully you are already beginning to work on your ideas for next year.
| | | | | | | | | Click on images to enlarge | | | | Click here for more information about the First Year projects and view a photo slideshow. | | | | | Salters Chemistry Festival
| | | Saturday May 12th TCD
| | | The 1st Year team who attended the annual Salter’s Chemistry Festival was made up of four first year students, Ella Thunder, Nanami Sweeny, Ciara Haynes and Emma Lyons. We met Mr Nugent at the Lincoln Gate Trinity College at 9:15am and went inside to the Large Lecture Theatre, where all twenty two schools registered.
In the Cocker Laboratory, we completed the ‘Salters Challenge’. We separated into two pairs, pair A and pair B. In this challenge we used chromatography to solve an imaginary murder and we also identified the non metal parts in a number of different substance. This was so that we could identify who the murderer was.
After the ‘Salters Challenge’ we had lunch in the Hamilton Atrium with the other schools and enjoyed sweets, crisps and drinks.
| | | | | | | Click on images to enlarge | | | | | After lunch we went back into the laboratory to do the ‘University Challenge’. For this challenge, using an acid a base and Universal Indicator, we had to make six different colours, red, yellow ,orange, blue, green and violet. Some colours were harder to make than others. We had to use exact amounts stated, otherwise the colour would change completely.
After the challenges we returned to the Large Lecture Theatre where there was a‘Chemical Magic’lecture. This was very exciting with lots of booms, bangs and screams1
It was a very enjoyable day and the team learned a lot and we all enjoyed ourselves. It was definitely a great experience and we would do it again.
Many thanks to Mr Nugent who promoted the event and organised everything.
Emma Lyons (1st Year)
| | | Xposure!
X-ray Imaging from 1895 to The Present Day
| | |  | | Click on image to enlarge |
| Prof. Liz Parfin BSc, PhD, CPhys, FInstP, MIPEM from The Open University delivered an exciting talk to Santa Sabina physics students an interested 4th years on Thursday March 8th.
We are very thankful to Prof Parfin as this was one of only two schools she visited on her trip to Ireland.
The discovery of X-rays by Roentgen in 1895 marked the beginning of medical imaging; it was the first time that anyone had been able to see inside the body without cutting it open. The talk charted the development of X-ray imaging from those first fuzzy images to the colourful and detailed 3D computed tomography (CT) images that we see today.
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As well as explaining how X-ray imaging works, Prof. Parfin included a practical demonstration of the way CT scans allow us to build up a 3D image of the patient, and show some of the stunning images that can be obtained on modern systems.
| | | Santa Sabina Students Meet Nobel Prize Winner
| | |  | | Click on image to enlarge |
| On Thursday March 29th Santa Sabina physics students travelled to the Helix Theatre DCU to attend "Time, Einstein and the Coolest Stuff in the Universe" a lecture by Dr William Phillips.
Our students were very honoured to meet Dr Phillips before the lecture, as he outlined the content of the lecture and answered their questions.
Indeed the lecture turned to be very lively, entertaining , multimedia spectacle demonstrating how Einstein's thinking is shaping one of the key scientific and technological |
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| | | wonders of life – atomic clocks. These clocks are at the heart of the Global Positioning System (GPS) which uses atoms cooled to incredibly low temperatures to guide cars and aeroplanes to their destinations.
| The arctic conjures up an image of the coldest 'state' that we can think of.
What could possibly be colder than that? In his 'whizz-bang' lecture Dr Bill Phillips, 1997 physics Nobel laureate, gave a very dynamic, almost explosive demonstration of what happens when temperatures go even lower.
Dr Phillips of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA was co-winner of the Nobel prize with Professor Steven Chu of Stanford University and Professor Claude Cohen-Tannoudji of the Collège de France and Ecole Normale Supérieure for "development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light".
According to Dr Phillips, if atoms can be cooled down towards absolute zero they react slower and can be trapped, and as a result they can be controlled and used to push the frontiers of precision measurement out even further. One major practical application of this research has resulted in the development of the most precise atomic clocks in the world as well as other tools such as ultra-sensitive gyroscopes used in navigation and atom imaging systems for the fabrication of ultra-small electronic components.
| | |  | | Nobel Medal |
| While the arctic is 185º above absolute zero, Dr Phillips brought into the lecture theatre a number of buckets, flasks and other containers which held a substance even colder than that - liquid nitrogen which is 77º above absolute zero.
He 'sloshed' the nitrogen onto the floor to demonstrate that in the comparatively warm temperature of the lecture theatre, the nitrogen appeared to boil as it evaporated in clouds around our feet.
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| | | By way of demonstrating even further just how things behave under extremely cold temperatures, Dr Phillips blew up balloons and immersed them in a flask full of liquid nitrogen. While the audience waited to see the results, Dr Phillips dipped a carnation into a bucket of nitrogen and within seconds pulled it out, like a rabbit out of a magician's hat, and crumpled the flower in his hand.
| | | After similar tricks with a bouncy ball and an elastic band, he pulled the blown-up balloons out of the flask to the amazement of the non-scientists who witnessed the frozen and flattened balloons as they appeared to re-inflate themselves.
While this might appear to us as magic, Dr Phillips was very keen to point out that this was in fact science. And science is a 'magic' subject to him. It has fascinated him from an early age when, as a child, his parents had allowed him to carry out demonstrations in his basement at home which often resulted in electricity blow-outs. By following his almost instinctive fascination with science, and working in a collaborative way with other scientists around the world, he has been able to bring down temperatures in his laboratory at NIST to almost absolute zero.
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