SAILS (Strategies for Assessment of Inquiry Learning in Science) works collaboratively with 13 partner organisations and universities from 12 EU countries in training teachers to impart the skills of analytical and critical thinking in students.

The project aims to stimulate interest in students in science subjects at second level and to promote the uptake of STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) at third level, so that Ireland continues to produce highly skilled graduates. It will also focus on problem-solving and workplace skills.

Minister Quinn said: “It is great to see Irish researchers now leading an international consortium of this size. This highlights the advances we have made in our research capabilities.”

Speaking at the initiative’s  launch at Dublin City University, Brendan Cannon from Intel Ireland highlighted the importance of the scheme.

“The ability of Ireland to be competitive in the future and to create sustained, long-term employment requires us to put in place foundations in education that emphasise 21st-century skills-based learning,” he said.

The theme for ENVIRON 2012 is “Our Environment; Integrating Today’s Research with Tomorrow’s Actions”. The theme will challenge delegates to consider how ongoing research can influence many overarching areas into the future such as environmental quality, policy, legislation, society and the economy. In order to engage fully with the theme, each presenter will be asked to address how their research relates to the theme in their abstract submission and concluding slide in their oral presentation.

Schedule of events

Wednesday 7 March

The conference will begin on Wednesday with workshops on Life Cycle Assessment, CV Preparation & Interview Skills, and Scientific Communication.

Later that evening, a Q&A discussion will be held at the conference hotel, Stillorgan Park Hotel, on the theme “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink”. The topic will cover a broad range of issues on sustainable water management (e.g. flooding, water metering, septic tanks, etc.). The panel will include Mr. Michael Ewing (Environmental Pillar), Mr. Michael Phillips (Dublin City Engineer), Mr. Dick Warner (Columnist & Broadcaster) and Dr. Mary Kelly-Quinn (Senior Lecturer, UCD).

Thursday 8 March

The plenary session on Thursday will address the theme of “Our Environment; Integrating Today’s Science with Tomorrow’s Actions”.The discussion will focus on how science can be used as the basis of developments in policy and commercial activity. The panel will include Mr. Michael Hamell (DG Env.), Dr. Laurence Gill (TCD) and Dr. Kevin O’Connor (UCD) alongside Chairman, Prof. Frank Convery of UCD Earth Institute.

Continuous efforts are being made to make registration fees affordable and to allow participation levels to remain high at ENVIRON 2012, the annual flagship event of ESAI. It should be noted that the full delegate fee has been reduced substantially this year to

How to attend and rates

Closing date for abstract submission and payment by purchase order is 5pm 20 January 2012.

• Standard delagate fee is €190
• Student rate is €100
• A new Student Discount Rate of €75 (Group of 10) has been introduced, which is particularly aimed at Undergraduate and Taught Masters Students

For more inforamtion visit the ENVIRON 2012 website

Professor Coleman specialises in nanoscience – the study of materials on a molecular scale – and his work earned him €1.5 million in European research funding in 2010. He is currently developing “nanosheets” – flat layers of materials that are just one atom thick.

From cosmetics and clothing to medicine and climate change, nanotechnology has a huge range of applications and is due to be introduced to Leaving Certificate syllabi in the coming years.

Listen to Professor Coleman and other researchers talk about nanotechnology in this video.

This is an opportunity for Irish researchers to travel to the USA and work with some of the world’s leading environmental research institutions.

A maximum of €20,000 in funding is available, assuming you spend a full academic year in the States (the award will be adjusted for a shorter period of study or research). If you are doing a Masters or PhD in the USA, the award can be used towards the first year but you will need to obtain additional funding for subsequent years.

Who is eligible?

You can apply as a student if you will have completed an undergraduate degree by September 2012 and intend to register for a Masters or PhD in the US. You can also apply as a student if you are already doing a PhD in Ireland and wish to carry out research in the US for six to 12 months as part of your doctoral study.

Or you can apply as a scholar if you:

• Have obtained a PhD within the past two years (if applying for 2012-2013 you would need to have been conferred no earlier than November 2010)
• Are currently engaged in research in Ireland and
• Wish to carry out specific work in the USA for three to 12 months

How to apply

Visit the Fulbright.ie website for more details on eligibility and how to apply as a student or scholar. Also bear in mind that:

• You must also apply separately to a US institution for a Masters/PhD programme or for research affiliation
• Successful candidates will not be eligible for a US residency or work visa until they have fulfilled the two-year home residency requirement of the J-1 visa (the “Two Year Home Rule”)

The deadline for all applications is midday on Friday 18 November 2011.

Other Fulbright funding

The Fulbright Awards 2012-13 are now open to applicants, offering grants for studying, lecturing and researching in the USA. The awards are open to postgraduate, post-doctoral and professional candidates across all disciplines.

Follow Fulbright Ireland on Twitter @Fulbright_Eire.

Professor Carol O’Sullivan of Trinity College Dublin’s School of Computer Science and Statistics talked about the project recently in her inaugural lecture as the university’s Professor of Visual Computing, and she has been giving a sneak preview of what the virtual city will look like.

She explained how virtual technologies and complex equations are being used to create dynamic scenes in this simluated world, from simple colliding spheres to a complex populated city:

“We see virtual technologies in movies, video games, online communities and even in serious applications, such as health and education. Research in the field of visual computing has contributed greatly to increasing the realism of virtual objects, scenes and characters, by drawing on fundamental mathematical, scientific and technical principles to create stunning visual effects.”

Professor O’Sullivan’s own background is in mathematics – she studied for a BA in Mathematics at Trinity College, and worked as a software engineer in industry, mainly in Germany. Then she took a Masters degree at DCU and a PhD in computer graphics at TCD.

Read more about the Metropolis project

Tagging a jellyfish in the Irish Sea

A team of marine biologists from University College Cork have been explaining their work with jellyfish on RTÉ’s “Living the Wildlife” TV series.

The team is led by Dr Tom Doyle, one of Discover Science & Engineering’s Science Ambassadors. Tom and research students Thomas Bastian and Damien Haberlin are members of the EcoJel project, which is studying jellyfish in the Irish Sea.

For a creature that is so common, we know very little about where they come from, what they eat, how they breed and which jellyfish can sting you.

One popular misconception is that the jellyfish that wash up on our beaches every summer come from warmer seas that simply drifted off course and ended up on Irish shores. But the team have identified at least six different kinds of jellyfish that live around our coasts.

Their study will explore the long-term trends in their abundance and their impact on fisheries and aquaculture. The project is a collaboration between UCC and Swansea University in Wales.

One jellyfish which is highly venomous is the lion’s mane jellyfish, and the programme followed members of the team as they tagged some lion’s mane jellyfish in the Irish Sea.

View the clip of the UCC team from “Living the Wildlife” on RTÉ’s website.

Learn more

• Read about the “Big Jellyfish Hunt” on Facebook
• Learn about Tom Doyle’s career as a marine biologist on our MyScienceCareer.ie website
• Visit the EcoJel project’s website, Jellyfish.ie
• Read the team’s guide on what to do if you have been stung by a jellyfish, and download a jellyfish ID card (PDF, 287KB)

A PhD student in Belfast is leading research into how effective these games really are, and is using a specially created app aimed at people over 50 to gather the scientific evidence.

The “Brain Jog” application has been developed by the researchers at Queen’ s University Belfast to find out what the over 50s are looking for in a brain training app. The free app is the product of 18 months of research, and is now available for iPhones, iPods and iPads.

The team is led by Donal O’Brien, a postgraduate at the university’s School of Music and Sonic Arts.

“Brain Jog has come to fruition after extensive research and collaboration with the target audience to find out exactly what appeals to them,” Donal says.

“By downloading this app, you can help us create a fantastic game experience for those over 50 – and bring us one step closer to finding out whether or not brain training can help prevent cognitive decline and dementia.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Donal is encouraging as many people as possible to download and use the app, and give feedback on their experience. Using this information, the researchers aim to improve the games, make them as user friendly as possible and maximise the number of people who play them regularly on a long-term basis.

In the next stage of the project, the team will track these long-term players to help clarify the effects of regular brain training on ageing minds.

Learn more

Download Brain Jog from the iTunes store

Follow Donal’s work on the project at  Brainjog.org or on Facebook or @brainjogapp on Twitter

• Sleep, bio-clocks and the brain – why shift work is not good for your health
• Young geologists who are mapping rocks in Iceland
• “Does watching others make us human?”
• “Walking for Hamilton” – an annual pilgrimage to commemorate William Rowan Hamilton, the 19th-century genius whose calculations gave us the all-action character Laura Croft
• A selection of great geo images from the Du Noyer photographic competition.
• Updates from Discover Primary Science and Maths

Visit the Science Spin website

A stage in the Power of Research game

“Power of Research” is a free strategic browser game in which you play the role of a research scientist.

Players can engage in “virtual” health research projects by performing microscopy, protein isolation and DNA experiments, publishing research results, participating in conferences, managing high-tech equipment and staff or requesting funding – all tasks of real researchers.

To succeed in the game, just as in real research projects, you will need to communicate, collaborate and compete. Players can compete against each other in real time or collaborate to become a successful virtual researcher, win scientific awards or become the leader of a research institute.

The free game is funded by the EU, and is already supported by five Nobel Prize winners and several internationally renowned researchers.

Play the game on PowerOfResearch.eu

The public lectures include how a young woman invented an exciting new silicone product called Sugru, a look at threats from space by the astronomer who discovered pulsars, science versus “Moon hoax” conspiracy theories, and a scientific guide to a Saturday night.

‘The Story of Sugru’

Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh
Friday, 12 November, 1pm
Venue: Science Gallery, TCD

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh is an artist, inventor, avid DIYer, hater of waste and believer in creativity. Jane’s ambition was to create something that everyone could use to fix or adapt mass produced products to make them work better.

So she came up with a new silicone material product called Sugru (from the Irish word for “play”) that has been described as the best invention since Sellotape.

In her Science Week lecture, Jane will tell the story of Sugru and how she brought  it from an idea to reality – through a long and winding road of creativity, science, collaboration, experimentation and learning.

Before inventing Sugru, Jane studied product design at the Royal College of Art in London, and sculpture at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.

‘Did we really Land on the Moon?’

Dr Martin A. Hendry
Wednesday, 10 November, 1pm
Venue: Science Gallery, TCD

More than 40 years after Apollo 11 there are many theories in books, TV documentaries and the internet that Neil Armstrong’s famous “One small step” was an elaborate hoax, filmed in secret back on Earth.

Conspiracy theorists point to a range of “evidence” to support their claim – including waving flags, strange shadows, no stars in the sky and deadly solar radiation.

In this talk, using real Apollo video footage and a series of simple demonstrations, physics and astronomy lecturer Martin Hendry will look at the science behind “Moon hoax” claims, and asks whether we really did land on the Moon.

‘Saturday Night Science’

Dr Graeme Jones
Thursday, 11 November, 1pm
Venue: Science Gallery, TCD

Can reaction dynamics explain that boy meets girl moment? Can studying spectroscopy turn you into a John Travolta on the dance floor? Can chemistry help you get a boyfriend/girlfriend?

Come along to this scientific guide to a Saturday night and find out where you might be going wrong.

Dr Graeme Jones is chemical ecologist who has a passion for public science. In 2002 he led the team that built the model of DNA in Stoke that broke the Guinness World Record. He works with massive molecular models the size of houses, displaying and parading them at festivals and carnivals, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

This lecture is suitable for audiences aged 16 and over.

‘Will the world end in 2012?’

Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Friday 12 November 2010, 7pm
Venue: Burke Theatre, Trinity College Dublin

Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a science legend. While she was studying for a PhD in radio astronomy she discovered pulsars, opening up a new branch of astrophysics.

Dr Bell Burnell’s Science Week talk will examine the threats from space and explain how much truth there is in the suggestions that killer asteroids, lethal solar flares or the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way (for example) could cause the end of the Earth.

How to book

Book tickets for the lecture with Jocelyn Bell through the RIA website

Book through the http://www.sciencegallery.com for the lectures by Dr Martin Hendry, Dr Graeme Jones and Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh.