Science Fun in MQP
11th November 2026
We were delighted to welcome Ellamay McIlhatton, an Ulster University PhD researcher and past pupil, into school today to showcase the important role of science. Science is part of our school development plan this year, with a focus on giving children the opportunity to experience hands-on science.
Ellamay began her morning in Primary 4, where the topic is Space. The children learnt all about the important role engineers play in making travel to space possible. They attempted to complete some work while wearing astronauts’ gloves and quickly realised that it was not as easy as it seems. They experimented with building rockets using balloons and air, using the engineering process of: ASK → DESIGN → BUILD → TEST → IMPROVE. They finished their busy morning with a lovely fizzing moon rock experiment.
Primary 6 were the next group to take part, and they went to the Parish Hall, where they learnt all about Ellamay’s job and what a biomedical engineer does. This linked well to our topic of Living Things. We learnt about what is inside our bones and had lots of fun comparing the inside of them to Crunchie bars. The investigation helped us understand why bones need to be strong, relatively lightweight, and able to withstand forces. This led us to our first challenge: fixing the broken bone. The children had to choose from a variety of different materials to create a safe model fracture. They then tested their designs, and we were able to compare them to see how well they stabilised the broken structure.
We also learnt all about how our lungs work and used bottles and balloons to demonstrate what happens to our lungs and diaphragm when we breathe, as well as why people sometimes need medical devices to help them breathe. After lunch, we finished our day with an exciting Elephant Toothpaste finale, with Ellamay leading us and two P6 scientists showing us how we predict, observe, and explain what is happening in a chemical reaction.
Today was a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to see that science is fun, and it allowed them to get involved in experiments. Hopefully, we have a few budding scientists for the future. We are so thankful to Ellamay and Ulster University for our fun-filled science day. A big thank you to Miss O’Donnell for helping organise today.
Miss McGurk
Science Co-ordinator
