Science is brought up to date in full interactive colour for a new school programme, writes Erin Golden
Primary school children across the State are exploring science through a new, interactive program called Mambo - but there's no dancing involved.
The colourful, computer-based classroom instruction program, Me and My Body (Mambo), was created by a team of researchers in Dublin City University's (DCU) Biomedical Diagnostics Institute to get children interested in the science of the body.
Launched in a handful of schools in the Dublin area in 2006, the project is scheduled to be in every primary school classroom by the end of this year.
According to members of the DCU team, the project, funded by Science Foundation Ireland, is meant to complement the first-ever primary school science curriculum, which was implemented just a few years ago.
"Science has only started to be taught in the last number of years, around 2003 or 2004, and a lot of primary school teachers wouldn't necessarily have had training in science," says Emma O'Brien, the project's education and outreach manager.
"What we've put together is a program that is really aimed at children, but also at teachers, especially those that might not be so comfortable with science."
In the lead-up to the official Mambo launch tomorrow at The Helix, DCU, the project's organisers have worked with an estimated 400 students aged eight to 12, both in and out of the classroom.
With the aid of the project's interactive website and a project-based CD-Rom, the students have been able to explore a variety of topics, including the heart, the immune system and the cell.
"We have activities on the blood, the heart and things like the immune system, which we break down into the skin, infection and disease," O'Brien says. "They get to do an experiment with temperature monitoring, to explore their temperature and their friends' temperatures."
Other sections encourage students to explore healthy living, with lessons on exercise, eating a balanced diet and the components of the food pyramid.
For the pilot period, most of the teaching was led by DCU team member Dr Fiona Killard, but O'Brien says teachers will be able to replicate and tailor the lessons to their own classroom.
"We're developing a CD that has a mixture of lesson plans, activities and instructions for the teacher," she says. "We've put a list of materials together that will be needed for the experiments, which should all be easily accessible."
The project's leaders also hope student participants will develop a life-long interest in the study of sciences of all kinds.
"It's been found in the past that primary school kids are very reflective and if you stimulate interest early, there will be interest in the long term as well," says Prof Brian MacCraith, the director of the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute.
Students who find their interest piqued by in-class work can find additional, more complex material online at the project's homepage. There, they can download a red blood cell screensaver, work through an immune system, word search or click through an illustrated tour of the human heart.
According to MacCraith, the site is designed to appeal to a generation used to learning in the virtual world.
" is a whole package of resources built around a very user-friendly, exciting website that's very visual," he says. "They have no fear at all of computers, and they end up learning by default because they're immersing themselves in something interesting."
In its limited release, the project has received high marks from both students and teachers.
"We've had an extremely good response from the kids themselves," says MacCraith.
"It's really fantastic, because you can see their excitement."