BIG things are built brick by brick. This has certainly proved to be the case at St John the Baptist Boys’ National School.
Pupils in second, third, and fourth classes at the Pennywell primary school, under the leadership of their teacher Alan Hally, held a showcase in their school to display their incredible work as part of the First Lego League Explore.
The initiative is a global STEM challenge for young people to explore a real-world theme, develop teamwork, design, and develop programming skills, and – most importantly – have fun.
This is the second time the city school and Mr Hally have taken part, having previously been involved in 2019.
This year, participation kits were provided through funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and Learn It as part of the school’s attempt to receive the Certificate in STEM with Curious Minds.
“(Pupils) have been taking part in this initiative since January. As part of the league, the students were tasked with building models from Lego using the theme of ‘Super-powered’, which focused on sustainable energy,” Mr Hally told the Limerick Post.
STEM, he believes, is a very important corner for a teacher to develop within their class as it will be a standalone subject under new curriculum reforms currently rolling out to all primary schools.
“Along with the three main models, the children had to work together to create innovative, unique models that linked in with the theme, Mr Hally said.
“Their build had to include at least one moving piece, so the children had the opportunity to learn coding skills using the Lego We-Do 2.0 kits.
“The children also had to research and present a project poster board based on exploring the theme, creating their build and sharing their ideas. All this hard work culminated in a very successful showcase last week,” he concluded.
