Category: Transition Year

Transition Year – Faraday Lecture University of Limerick

The Faraday Lectures

The Transition Years attended a lecture in the University of Limerick today. The lecture was called “The Faraday Lecture” after the scientist Michael Faraday on whose work all modern day robotics and physics is based. While being a lecture it was very practical based showing students examples of modern day robots and robots of the future based on Faraday’s principles.

Brief biography of Michael Faraday

Faraday, Michael (1791-1867):
Coming from a poor family, Faraday was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to a bookbinder: “he was allowed to spend as much time reading books as he did binding them.” One of the books he found himself regularly binding was the Encyclopedia Britannica. After six years of book binding, to his very good fortune, Faraday, at the age of 21, was introduced to Sir Humphrey Davy; he went and joined Davy at the Royal Institution as Davy’s personal assistant. (A story describing the relationship of Davy and Faraday would prove to be a mighty interesting one.) At any rate, Faraday led a very illustrious career as a scientist. (In those days they called themselves natural philosophers; and indeed, Faraday was a philosopher: his researches are pointed to as illustrative of the power of the inductive philosophy.) Though there developed quite a dispute over the point, Faraday is generally credited with the discovery of electromagnetic induction (1821), and described certain elements and chemical compounds such as chlorine and benzene.

Limerick Institute Technology



School of Engineering
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

The Transition Years attended LIT yesterday for the first of four weeks in LIT. Every Wednesday for the next four weeks the Transition Years will travel to Limeirck Instiute of Technology Electrical Engineering Department to tak epart in a taster course. The students will use the Automation and Robotics labs and the electrical labs to give them a taste of what a course in Electrical Engineering would be like and what careers they could expect from it. At the end of teh course the students will take home some completed circuits and pieces they manufactured during their time.

Coca-Cola Form and Fusion Regional Finals

CocaCola Form and Fusion Awards is one of the major events of the Transition Year calander. Students are required to make any costume of their own design and the only requirement is that students must use recycled materials. Teams of three work on each costume from the start of Transition Year in September until mid January

The Munster Regional Final takes place in the Silver Springs Hotel Cork on Wednesday 26th January. The Transition Year class and Art students from third year who are interested in competing next year will attend with the entrants

2005 Entry by Daniel Sheehan, Tomas Sheehy and Micheal Whelan entitled Angular Anger


More Photos and details of this years entries will be posted here in the coming days

Here are some of our previous entries:
(click on photo to enlarge it)

January 2004: Amanda Kenny, Raymond Bary and Aoife Greayney

January 2003: Noreen Quaid and Lisa Ahern

ENFO Award for Young Scientist’s

ENFO Award for Young Scientist’s


Transistion Year Students from Hazelwood College Billy Fehin and Mary Ennis travelled to Dublin on January 26th to meet Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche who presented them with an award from ENFO the Enviromental Agency for the work on Elephant Grass. The students as part of the Young Scientist competition researched the grass and investigated it’s potential as a alternative renewable fuel. Also in the picture is their teacher Miss Neville who helped them with their research.


Young Scientist’s Win Award

Elephant Grass wins an award.

Billy Fehin and Mary Ennis, Transition Year students from Hazelwood College Dromcollogher were last Friday night presented with an Esat BT Young Scientist special award from Comhra, National Sustainable Development Partnership.

With the help of their teacher Ms. Neville their project looked at Elephant Grass or Miscanthus as it is scientifically known. Miscanthus is a perennial low- input, high-output crop that has great biomass energy potential and loves soil with high water retention properties. Basically that means that Miscanthus is a type of grass, never before successfully grown in Ireland that requires very little work to farm but has huge potential to become a new type of environmentally friendly fuel.

This project has also been selected by ENFO to be displayed in their head office in Dublin and the students will be presented with 100 euro’s each by the Minister for the Environment for their research in the area of environmental science.

EsatBT Young Scientist – Transition Years Attend

Today the Transition Years visited the EsatBT Young Scientist Exhibition in Dublin to sample the athmosphere and the range of projects on display. Most importantly they went to offer their support to classmates Billy Fehin and Mary Ennis whose project was selected for display out of the thousands of entrants

On Thursday the 13th of January Transition Year students went to Dublin to
the Esat BT scientist awards. They traveled up on the 9 o’clock train from
Charleville Co. Cork. When they arrived in Huston station they had light
refreshments. They then got the bus to the Connolly station and got the dart
to Lansdowne road. They walked to the RDS where they meet with their
colleagues who had been selected to represent the school their project was
based to elephant grass. They got a considerable amount of support from their
science teacher Miss. Neville and support from Mr. Lenihan. There were many
interesting project from different schools from all over the country. The
young scientist is a brilliant way to show a person’s talent and dedication
to a project, by the way they present it. This would be a great day of
enjoyment and encouragement for the whole family.

By Helen White

EsatBT Young Scientist – Mary Ennis and Billy Fehin Enter

Scientific Research at Hazelwood College
Preparing for the Young Scientist Exhibition
By: Mary Ennis and Billy Fehin, Transition Year Students of Hazelwood College, Dromcollogher

We began preparing our Young Scientist project in September when our chemistry teacher, Ms. Neville brought us in an article she had read in the Limerick Leader. The minute we read it we were instantly fascinated. The article was in relation to Elephant Grass or Miscanthus as it is scientifically known. Miscanthus is a perennial low- input, high-output crop that has great biomass energy potential and loves soil with high water retention properties. Basically that means that Miscanthus is a type of grass, never before successfully grown in Ireland, that requires very little work to farm but has huge potential to become a new type of environmentally friendly fuel. It loves wet boggy land which is why the grass is growing very successfully in Adare. We went on to the internet hoping to find some research material in relation to our project. We were surprised to find millions of pages relating to Miscanthus. We spent weeks reading through the material with the help of our teacher who was always there to give us new ideas and motivation when we needed it. For the practical side of the project we began by visiting Joe Hogan, the farmer who featured in the article. Joe was a wealth of information and on a cold morning in November he happily explained to us how he got started and why he decided to invest so much of his time into his crop. At this stage all of the information we were gathering was starting to make sense. We then went on to spend a full day in the University of Limerick testing the Miscanthus we had taken fresh from Joes farm. This was a great learning experience in itself as we were using chemicals and equipment that we had never heard of before. Mr. JJ Leahy, an industrial chemistry professor in UL was a great help to us on the day as he also has a keen interest in the Miscanthus phenomen. He also works closely with Joe Hogan so it was a great privilege to be working alongside him testing for such things as its Kilogram Calorific Value and Nutrients. So now as the Young Scientist Exhibition draws closer it seems the end is in sight. The project has taken four months of hard work and dedication but it has been a fantastic learning experience and was certainly worth the effort.

Click picture below to view article from Limerick Leader 15th January 2005

About Transition Year

Transition Year was reintroduced to Hazelwood College in September 2002 and is currently being co-ordinated by Miss Griffen. The programme is extremely successful and is already proving to be of great benefit to participants. Transition Year is offered to students immediately their Junior Cert.. The year is seen as a stepping stone for students moving from Junior Cycle to the demands of the Leaving Certificate programme. The year is also designed to give students a taste of different types of careers so that they may have a clearer idea of the career path they will chose to follow after the Leaving Cert. Students who have taken the Transition Year option tend to have a more mature attitude to the Leaving Cert Exam and attain better results. Transition Year aims to help students to develop academically, socially and personally. Students continue their work in the core subjects of Maths, English, Irish and Modern Languages. By this the students are given the chance to begin work on the Leaving Cert. Programme. Students also take classes in Chemistry, Art, Nature Studies, SPHE and Religion. In addition Transition Year students take a number of practical courses, which, on completion entitles them to recognised certificates, which will be of great use to them in later life e.g. The European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL), the Driver Theory Test, Home Management, Toastmasters and First Aid.

Transition Years Recieving Gasice Awards

Hazelwood College is very proud of its association with the University of Limerick and this is especially true for Transition Year Students. Throughout the Transition Year Students get involved in a number of orientation programmes in the different departments at the University of Limerick. In 2004 Hazelwood College Transition Year Students became the first students in the country to be awarded the new National Sports Leader Award in association with the University of Limerick and the Irish Sports Council.

Transition Year Students to develop a strong sense of responsibility. Students are given responsibility for different aspects of school life such as the school canteen, the shop and the school bank. They also have to work towards achieving the prestigious Gaisce awards from the President.

What the students say:

“The work experience we obtained gave us a chance to experience working life and what we wanted to do in later life”
Marie Kirwan Transition Yeay 2002/3

“Transition Year gave us an opportunity to mature as group and to develop new friendships within a new group” .
Jenny O Connor Transition Year 2002/3

“We achieved lots of certificates and completed many courses eg, Food and safety, Toastmasters, ECDL, and the Personal Development Day”
Denise O Sullivan Transition Year 2002 /3


All original content © 2002-2024

Hazelwood College | Dromcollogher | Co. Limerick | P56 HF60 | Phone 063-83121 | Fax 063-83042 | email: [email protected] | web: www.hazelc.ie