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I agree! The Northern Lights were definitely such an unexpected teaching moment this year – especially for the older classes. I wasn’t familiar with johnwashastro on Instagram either but after looking it up, I can see that some of this photography is amazing! I definitely plan to use some of his work as a prompt for future lessons. Thanks!
Consider how many songs/poems/art can you think of to connect us with the night sky.
I think there is a huge variety of songs, poems and artwork that can be integrated into the topic of space, astronomy and the night sky. I watched a reading by Michael D. Higgins of his poem ‘Stardust’ which I enjoyed and could be used for the senior classes. However, I am currently an infant teacher and I have become very familiar with poems and picture books to do with space as I normally cover the theme of space across a month in the spring term, using it as a stimulus for play and the former Aistear framework.
I particularly like the poem/rhyme ‘Star light star bright’ as it is an easy to learn rhyming poem and there is a lovely video on Youtube that the children always seem to enjoy. This could easily be extended to a lesson on our dark skies and possibly light pollution by encouraging the children to look into the night skies at home and try to find the brightest star, is it easy to find? Was there too much artificial light that may slightly obscure the view etc?
The picture book ‘How to catch a star’ by Oliver Jeffers is also a story that can connect us to the night sky as the little boy cannot figure out how to catch the star during the day. This could start as a prompt for a lesson about the stars in our dark skies also.
Songs such as Coldplay ‘Sky full of Stars’ is always a popular one for the children to learn as a conclusion to our space topic. The Picture This song ‘If I build a home on the Moon’ is also a very good song that contains space vocabulary such as craters, galaxies, planet. There are countless songs, poems and stories that incorporate a connection to our dark skies. It is definitely a topic that grabs the attention of all class levels.
Hi Sharon, I really liked the idea of getting the class to create posters on how to protect the local bio-diversity, giving them a sense of responsibility for their local environment.
How to engage learners to explore bio-diversity in your local area and the possible impacts of light pollution on local bio-diversity.
I am currently a Senior Infant teacher and this is an area which always really interests the children in the infant classes. I would begin by asking them to draw some creatures that they think we may find if we went on a walk around the grassy areas of our school. This would engage the children and encourage them to use some prediction skills while showing their knowledge level to me as the teacher.
We would have a class discussion on their predictions and I would introduce the term ‘bio-diversity’ to the class. Lots of the resources in the ‘Wild Things at school’ programme could be used here too.
We would take a little ‘bio-diversity bug walk’ around the school grounds and see what we can find – comparing it to our previous predictions. Some of the mini-beasts could also be collected for further exploration in the classroom.
In an ideal situation, I would hope to find a lady-bird (spring/summer months) and a lesson on the life-cycle of the ladybird would then follow this overview of bio-diversity in the local area lesson. Through learning about the life-cycle of the ladybird I would highlight the effects of light pollution on this bugs life-cycle e.g. confusion around the time of day and year due to artificial light and the effect of light pollution on the plants that the ladybird eats to survive.
There are many picture books and stories containing small creatures such as ladybird and other invertebrates that can be read to the children to integrate reading and literacy into a bio-diversity lesson.
I really like this simple and engaging way to teach light pollution to infants. It is a topic that can be difficult to convey and therefore the use of the story book and practical activity is a great way to highlight it! Thanks for sharing
Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
Light pollution is most definitely an issue in the area in which I teach and the majority of my students live as it is a well lit up residential town with an international airport. I would struggle to think of a place in the immediate locality where one would experience a naturally dark sky.
This lesson would be intended for the senior classes and I would begin by recapping on previous pollution lessons covered. As light pollution is not as well known or advertised, it will be interesting to see what the children already know about it. I would ask them if they think our area (Shannon) has a lot of light pollution or not. Due to the airport, there is a high level of light and when I researched it on the online ‘light pollution map’ it does seem to be a heavily polluted area. I would hope the class would make the link with the airport once they are aware what artificial light is and the definition of light pollution. As we live in a well lit up town there is also a good chance they will be able to easily identify areas where there is little to no access to natural light.
I would inform the children about light pollution and the negative benefits it can have on our natural life and our own lives too – many of the videos provided on this course would be of great use.
I would then allow the children time to create their very own cityscape of our town – highlighting where they feel there is most artificial light and possible places where we could aim to reduce this. This could be done in pairs. Once they have identified these areas, we could brainstorm as a class on how to reduce light pollution and practical ways we could actually put this into action e.g. street lamps changing to fully shielded fixtures so as not to be shining straight into our night skies or even using warmer lighting to prevent the insects being attracted.
To integrate this with literacy – we could draft a letter in a persuasive writing style and genre to our local council to both inform him/her of what can be done to reduce light pollution in the area and also to encourage them to make small changes in order to do so. Group work could also be undertaken by the children to inform the local community e.g. making posters on easy tips to reduce light pollution for everyone.
I would plan to observe the moon and its phases. I understand this may be a difficult time to observe as we are at school for the majority of the day but I would also set some homework as part of the activity. This could be done digitally or simply on a worksheet.
I would aim for this lesson to be taught to either 1st or 2nd in October as this appears to be the best time due to it being the time of the first quarter moon.
We would begin by discussing the moon and reading a story about the moon, such as ‘The Way Back Home’ by Oliver Jeffers. We would discuss the way the moon appears in the illustrations in this story and how it can look different to us at different times of the day and year. The crescent moon is depicted on the cover of this book which will hopefully be easiest to see in the morning at school.
I found the Paxi video on the different phases of the moon to be very informative and engaging in a child centred and age appropriate way and therefore I would use this video to explain the moon phases before we go about observing anything ourselves.
We would then aim to observe the moon at different times of the day and we would record our observations on a ‘moon observation log’ (as per slides). The online resources would also be useful here.
I would do this lesson over a week or maybe even more to ensure we get the most accurate results and weather permitting. The children would also be encouraged to bring the moon log home to draw how the moon looks at their bed time or evening time – hopefully on a clear enough night!
Hi Gráinne, I had not heard of Stellarium either and it appears to be a brilliant resource. Once I am familiar myself with how it all works I will definitely be introducing it into my classroom. I am planning on testing it out some clear night to compare it to real life!
Construct a sundial in your immediate area or plan for your school grounds to see where a sundial could be placed.
I am a Senior Infant teacher and this is one of the activities which I feel can be quite easily and simply done with this level. I would aim to complete this activity after we have completed the unit of time in our maths lessons and the children are familiar with analogue clocks and ‘o’clock’ times. This lends itself very well to integration opportunities. The children will also already be familiar with the basic concept of the sun and how the earth orbits the sun. An activity where they draw eachothers shadows with chalk in the morning and then see any changes by home time or the next day could also be a pre-cursor to this sundial lesson.
I would begin the lesson by showing some images of sun dials from the past – engaging their interest and causing them to wonder. We would then discuss ‘long ago’ and how this was the equivalent of the modern day clock. My school has a very large open yard where I believe I could pin-point a good area with no shadows – the children can also help with this, drawing on the previous shadow lesson. Once we identify the correct place, we could make a smiley face sun with 12 points (like a clock) and use a marker or stick for the shadow. At this point, it is important to identify north using a compass – I would not go into a huge amount of detail for this age group but I would highlight to them that the sun rises in the east and show them the direction of this in relation to our sundial.
We would set up the dial and every hour we can check on it to see how accurate it is in relation to our clock. Provided it does not rain and there is sun for a few days, it could be left for a few days so other classes could observe it also.
Children would record what we observed on a simple worksheet or just simply draw the sundial and how we came to make it to record their findings.
