TY Trip - Butlers Chocolate Factory

All TY Home Ec students were offered an opportunity to go to the Butlers Chocolate Factory to have a tour of the factory and to see what happens in the factory. We left the school in the morning and arrived an hour later in Coolock. First of all, we had to make sure health and safety measures were put in place. We had to wear fishnets and white coats to protect our hair and clothes. After that, a speaker, Laura, spoke to us about how chocolate is made in the factory.

As we were walking around listening to her, we got ready made toffee chocolates. There was different departments and every person in the factory had a role to fulfil. Some people had to decorate the chocolate and others had to package the chocolate. We saw different types of machines that make the work more efficient. We learnt about the origin of chocolate by walking through the timeline hallway. A short film was presented to us about the origin of chocolate and the Butlers Chocolate Factory. From the short film we learnt many new facts. For example, modern chocolate comes from West Africa. The founder of Chez Nous was Marion Butler. James Sorenson bought the company and renamed it Butlers Chocolate. Also, the company was renewed in 1984.

At the end of the tour we got to make our own personalised chocolate elephants. First of all we had to watch a demonstration and then we had to try make it ourselves. Everyone had their own brush to decorate the chocolate with white chocolate and a plastic bag and ribbon to package the chocolate. After that, the tour unfortunately came to an end. But fortunately we got to go to the Butlers Chocolate Cafe and we stayed there and waited for our bus to come and pick us up. We took a group photo before the bus came. When the bus came, we headed back to school. Overall, It was a successful outing and I think everyone gained more understanding about their favourite snack! It was a very enjoyable experience that will long in our memories.

TY Biology Talk - "The Genetics Revolution"

On Tuesday the 14^th of November, Ms Gillen's lucky Biology students took a trip to Dublin Institute of Technology to attend a science talk called "The Genetics Revolution". This anticipated lecture was to be of stimulating content to the class as we had spent the previous number of weeks studying the cell and efficiently, genetics and DNA etc.

We arrived to the college at approximately 10:15 that morning, with a comfortable 15 minutes to spare before the talk began. We arrived into the hall to be presented with a large number of other schools, also there to attend the talk.

The talk began and we were immediately immersed in engagement with the speaker and voluntary audience contribution. The speaker made sure everyone felt involved and even called some members of the audience up to help him with experiments.

The lecture mainly focused on the biological areas of genetics, DNA, blood types and subtopics such as chromosomes and cells etc. It was very interesting to learn about ways to collect cell samples and also how to preform experiments on them.

The talk was overall incredibly interesting and I gained a lot of knowledge on the subject

Public Access to Law

On Tuesday the 28th of November a group of 30 Transition Years had the chance to go to a Public Access to Law course in the school. The course took place all day in a classroom. In the morning we watched a CSI video which talked about two famous murder cases. The cases were easy enough to deduce just by watching, but they showed that forensic evidence plays an important role in court cases. The second case we saw was especially easy, I saw a good few people mumble "it was him" the second the actor who was later revealed as the killer came onto the screen. Nevertheless, the videos were informative and educational.

Afterwards we went through the main newspaper headings concerning law for the day, which showed us that law is always a topical subject. My personal favourite headline which was about a genuine case: "Man jailed for stealing from church boxes using sellotape-on-a-stick." In the afternoon we did three separate mock trials where we had the chance to be barristers, witnesses, and defendants. I chose to be a barrister for the prosecution for a case about an angry man 'disturbing the peace' on an aeroplane. My side won the case as he was found guilty, although I later felt bad because I certainly had a reasonable doubt about whether he was actually guilty or not.

I really enjoyed the course, even though Ms. Clerkin came in at the end and informed us that we had a test on everything we learned that day. We've been assured that the test is very easy. We didn't get a chance to discuss Twelve Angry Men, the film we had to watch and answer questions on prior to the course, but we did get to discuss important aspects of being a barrister. Overall I found the course extremely beneficial and it has guided me to consider pursuing a career in law in the future.