In February, senior room pupils went to the Great National Hotel ,Ballina for a STEM event. The event was hosted by Hollister. This was about us learning about science, technology, engineering and maths. The event was aimed at fifth and sixth class pupils. This event also explained to us what Hollister manufacture. Hollister is a local health care company in Ballina that manufactures equipment for hospitals around the world. Some of our parents work there. We learned that the ostomy bags made there are designed for patients with digestive conditions or illnesses. Patients use the ostomy bags instead of going to the toilet. .
At 10am we arrived at the location of the event. First of all, there was a talk from Hollister workers. Shortly afterwards, they welcomed an American boss of Hollister. We were surprised that she came all the way over from the United States. After a short presentation from her was Norah Patten, an Irish national aeronautics engineer. She is actually from Ballina!! She gave a lovely presentation about her life and about how she became an aeronautical engineer. 30 minutes later, the presentation finished. We were allowed to explore the room and all the scientific stalls. My favourite stall was the slime stall. We mixed PVA glue and contact lens solution into a small container. Then we shook up the glue to make slime. On another stall, we were able to learn a bit more about ostomy bags and have a chance to win a sweets. There was an opaque box of sweets and we had to reach into the box to get a sweet. If you got an orange sweet, it represented a defective bag. There were more than 15 stands at the event. At the end of the event, our school got a picture with Norah Patten. We got her autograph! When we were lining up to leave, we got a glass water bottle with a device holder at the bottom. After a while, we got the bus back to school. We had a great day and learned lots about STEM and Hollister. That evening, we got to see ourselves on TV on the Today Show on RTE1 where Norah Patten was speaking about STEM.
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