A two-day primary school science event in Belfast highlights the sounds our environment makes. Mireia Pomar reports.
Carton boxes, plastics, little pipes and straws are some of the objects that more than 200 schoolchildren from Northern Ireland used to create their own musical instruments. The young delegates became musicians for one day at Sounds like Science, an event co-ordinated by Queen's University Belfast as part of its Primary Connexions programme. The pupils had an opportunity to share their studies and research with other schools, and with an audience of invited scientists, engineers and educationalists.
"This year, primary school pupils from about 25 schools have researched all different aspects of science," said Mervyn Farrell, special project officer at Queen's. "Children come to the university and present their findings to each other, in different seminars sections, and exactly in the same environment that real scientists and engineers do at academic conventions."
This is the third year that Queen's has staged Sounds like Science as part of its Primary Connexions programme. The program was established as a key university outreach event for primary schools, and is supported by school advisers from four local education and library board areas.
Sounds like Science took place last week on the campus at Queen's. The event focused on the background sounds heard in the environment, and the participants also had to create their own musical instruments. At the end of the day they showed each other how to use those instruments and what they discovered about science.
The participants' ages ranged between nine to 11. There were 25 schools presenting their work. This took place over two days, with about 100 attending each day. "But this 100 represented the work of many more pupils in the schools," Farrell says. The actual number of students involved was between 500 and 600. "Everybody couldn't come in, we haven't the space for everyone."
They are fascinated by science and engineering, and they love to study the world around them, according to Farrell. Children share their findings with other schools, and through their own work, they get a wider base of knowledge, he says. Part of the activity involved showing how the instruments worked and how their pitch could be changed, he explains.
"They actually build the musical instruments, using everyday material, boxes, carton boxes, cardboard boxes, elastics, little pipes and straw to make different musical instruments.
"Children also used science recordings, they would record noises in their own environment, and then they would let people hear the noises and they explained the noises and the environment," Farrell says. For city schools they would be city noises, with aircraft coming over head, cars and buses and road traffic.
"And of course for the people from the country side, the sounds are very different, because they would be the science of animals or tractors or farm machinery. So they show each other how they live in a different science environment."
This year Sounds like Science for the first time invited pupils from special schools for children with disabilities. "We had four special primary schools each day," Farrell says. "They have done some lovely science work with their teachers, and because obviously they can't demonstrate in some cases in the same way as the other pupils, they have used music and other science things to demonstrate what they learned in the conference."