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On reflection, Paxis video is definitely a resource I could see myself using in my classroom. It is abe appropriate, informative, and engaging. It definitely meets the needs of younger classes. I think often as a teacher who has more experience in the junior end of the school, I can shy away from exploring big topics such as climate change as I fear ideas are too abstract and may go over the children’s heads. However, a video like this provides an important starting point to overcome this challenge and to introduce these abstract topics in a more child friendly way. It is a good stimulus for lesson to encourage discussion and questioning and allows me as the teacher to elicit the children’s prior knowledge and to see where they are at and where I can go with the lesson. The video provides children with clear and concise explanations of such important topics. It too encourages children to become critical thinkers which is core to curriculum values. I think these activities do just that! There are lots of opportunities for project and group work and meaningful links to other subjects. I particularly liked the Earth under the Lid experiment and look forward to trying it out with my students next year !
I definitely agree with Diarmaid! A really great resource that provides lots of opportunities for discussion
The paper Unravelling STEM: Beyond the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics by Liston 2018 was very informing and insightful. It provided me with opportunities to reflect on STEM education in my classroom. On reflection, STEM education was an area I feel I would not have been confident teaching in newly qualified. However, I have tried my best. I always use an integrated approach to STEM and try to ensure learning is meaningful and connected for the pupils, as this is very important.
The activities mentioned were great lessons. They both provided student’s with opportunities for active and meaningful learning and also made lessons student centred. I think weather detectives was a great one. This provides opportunities for linkage and integration also. Looking at weather and climate in different countries and comparing and contrasting with other weather in Ireland, creating acrostic poems in literacy, designing and making different weather tools in visual arts such as a rain gauge. Last year in. Y classroom, each child had a monthly calendar. Every morning, we would look at the day and date and log the weather using a simple drawing or symbol such as a cloud, sun, or umbrella. This was a great hit with the children. They loved coming in on a Monday filling in their symbols for what the weather was like at the weekend. This allowed me to see it was much more than a simple learning task the children completed in school. At the end of each month, we would analyse our findings and see what weather we encountered the most this month. We would then check if the weather was in line with stereotypical weather for that month. Discussion would occur surrounding this. This again provided opportunities for integration with maths and data. What weather was the most and least popular, how many days of rain in November, how many days of sunshine across the winter months, and so on. We stapled together the calendar pages for the academic year. I even provided children with the months of July and August for them to keep logging if they wish to do so. On reflection, this was a very meaningful activity that we carried out for the school year. It is definitely something I would recommend trying in your classroom with your students as the learning opportunities are endless!
I think logging in the schools newsletter is an excellent idea as it links the school with the wider community and acknowledges the importance of parental involvement !
The effects of climate change can be seen in the amount of school closures in the last two academic years as a result of weather and weather warnings. This was never the case before. I left primary school in 2008 and vaguely recall such time off due to weather warnings. It seems to become the norm now. Although children love the idea of a snow day and extra time off, when we reflect on this it is an alarming consequence of climate change. Our winters are colder and more unpredictable and our summers much hotter with random bursts of heatwaves. Researching into this as a class project could be very influential for students. As mentioned in this module, climate change affects everyone even if the most marginalised countries are those most affected, it is important we realise we are not exempt from the devastating consequences of climate change.
A good idea would be to keep a weather diary. This provided lots of integration opportunities with time in maths. Children would log the weather every day on every month. At the end of every term, we could look back on the weather encountered during the last few months. Questioning could occur surrounding how many sunny days, how many rainy days? Was the weather in line with what it should stereotypically be at that time of year. There are endless opportunities for teaching and learning. I think it is important to use the children’s immediate environment as a starting point for lessons, our surrounding community, our county and our country. Although there are great lessons worldwide for example bushfires in Australia. I think learning will be more meaningful for children when it is related to their personal life experience. This learning could be then be built on by expanding to examples worldwide
Light monitors and water watchers are a great idea. Children love having responsibility and it is so important for them to see how we can all work together to achieve bigger goals for our climate
The Cork Migrant Centre was established in 2006 and acts as an advocacy for migrant children and families. It offers a wide range of services. The goal of these services is to empower children and families and provide them with the best opportunities possible. They provide coffee mornings and English classes all free of charge. I think it is very important to provide a safe haven for migrant families. The Cork Migrant Centre was founded by the Presentation sisters. Their work derives from Nano Nagle, who worked very hard to help those at risk of educational disadvantage in Cork. It is inspiring to see the effect of Nano Nagle so many years on and how her influence can still be seen today through the establishment of the Cork Migrant Centre
I would choose the goal of Renewable Energy as our school has recently gotten solar panels fitted. This provides the school as a starting point for learning. The children can see the solar panels in action and research work can occur into the uses of solar panels. We could explore the benefits these have for our school and for the environment and also some drawbacks that may occur.
I would agree climate change is a very important topic. There are some great ways to explore this in the classroom.
Gender Sterotypes influence children from a young age. It is import at these stereotypes are challenged and development education provides lots of opportunities for this to happen. It has been very interesting to read different scenarios other teachers have encountered on this post. I have encountered a few gender stereotypes in my classroom.
Last year I was teaching junior infants in an all male school. At the beginning of the year, the children asked why we had a toy kitchen in the classroom, I responded that it was for play time. One boy questioned why boys would be playing with the kitchen. This emphasised to me that these sterotypes start as young as 5 years old. It was interesting to see that at the beginning of the year, the children avoided the kitchen however once one child started playing with it they all did,
Another example is whilst doing art and painting spring flowers. We discussed different colours we would need to paint the flowers. A variety of colours were discussed for example, green for the leaves, yellow for the petals. The children were provided with a variety of different pastel colours for their flowers and were allowed to use whatever colour they liked. Pink was one of the fewer options we saw used. Although no one mentioned anything about the colour pink, it was interesting to see it was not the children’s colour preference. I think this re-emphasised for me gender stereotypes and how society emphasises boys liking blue and girls liking pink from as young as birth!Very interesting to see the changes that a co educational approach will bring about. It also provides lots of opportunities to challenge gender stereotypes
I would agree that development education is very important in schools today. The paper was very insightful and provided lots of points of thought. Today, Schools are very diverse. There are lots of opportunities to teach development education, in particular integration opportunities across a wide range of subjects. I would definitely focus on the SESE subjects as a starting point but could also make links to painting in visual arts and debates in English. As mentioned in this module, there should not be an emphasis on extra lessons and the focus should be on learner centred classrooms and process centered learning. These are two very important points I would take away. Students today are exposed to lots in social media and on the news. As a teacher, I think it is important to teach lessons and explore issues of development education that I would be confident in teaching. The global goals are a good starting point for lessons and provide a good focus. These could be incorporated into a whole school plan where a focus on a different goal or multiple goals occurs per term
