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Great ideas for the Phoenix Park – hours could be spent examining the natural, man made , historic and cultural features of this area. A great choice!
Describe how you would involve your pupils in an art, music drama or creative writing project based around your local natural or scientific heritage
My school is located near to Granard, Co. Longford, which is home to Ireland’s biggest motte and bailey, dating back to Norman times. I would like to involve the children in my class in an art project based on the scientific hertiage associated with the construction of the motte and bailey.
I would begin the project with a story telling session about the motte and bailey in Granard. Talk about its purpose and what life was like for the people who lived here. as the site is near to our school, we would visit the current Knights and Conquest Centre to get a deeper understanding.
Next lesson would include a sketch by children of the natural features and the man made features at the site – high ground, castle, bridge. Discuss the engineering behind the man made features, considering the labour and equipment used at the time of construction.
Children are split in groups. Each group will be given a area of the project to recreate eg. the castle, the bridge, the water around the motte, the bailey, the courtyard using a of mixture materials to recreate- clay, grass, stones, twigs, cardboard, paper.
When each group have completed their area, all the sections will be joined to complete the recreated motte and bailey. Children discuss their work and give feedback to other groups.
Lovely idea to use BeeBots during this lesson. Children always enjoy using BeeBots and great way to include mathematical thinking.
Using the suspension bridge in Birr Castle Demesne or a bridge in your local area as inspiration, describe how you would plan a class or whole school challenge to design and make a bridge. How would you integrate mathematical thinking and incorporate the maths skills appropriate to your class level:
To begin with I would bring the children on a walk to our local bridge. The bridge has been here for many years and is in constant need of repair. This would be the ‘hook’ for the children and would engage the children. Discuss the purpose of the bridge and why it was built initially and for whom. I would tell the children that we are going to replace the bridge in Bunlahy. The bridge will need to hold the greatest weight as it will be used by lorries coming to and from a local quarry.
Children will work in groups to research and and plan. Sketch and label their drawings. Maths included in this – counting, sorting , comparing and use of non-standard units in junior room. Measuring in standard units, scaled sketches, estimating for middle room ( My class group is Infants – 2nd).
Children will work in groups to construct the bridges with given materials, paper, string, lollipop sticks, tapes, paperclips. Children will use predicting and measuring during the construction. When completed, the children will test their bridge, using appropriate weights eg small coins, toy cats, lorries. Children collect data and use comparisons. Discuss fair testing.
Children present their work and explain their findings. Link back to real world engineering where possible – Bunlahy Bridge, Birr Castle Suspension Bridge.
Nice idea to use a design and make activity involving bird feeders alongside Birds In Our Garden project. Integration through art education, science and maths. Also, an enjoyable experience for learners.
Outline how you would use some of the course resources to conduct a seasonal biodiversity project to run throughout the school year. What resources and recording sheets would you need? How often would you bring learning outdoors? How would you integrate other subject areas?
This module has given me lots of hands on and simple ideas on how to study biodiversity with my class. Some of the resources I could use include to run a biodiversity project would be A Wildflower Walk and a Garden Bird Survey. We are fortunate in our in school in that we have a large garden area surrounded by a hedgerow. Our school is rural so it would be quite easy to go on a wildflower walk with the children. To begin, we would look at keys and picture of different wildflowers. Children could work in groups to identify the wildflowers and then talk to the class about one of the flowers. This could be carried out twice per season and talk about the different types of flowers to be found, depending on the season. Older classes could use data in maths to present findings.
I would like for my class to become involved in Birdwatch Ireland’s Garden Bird Survey. I feel this project is more suited to middle or upper classes so a buddy system could be put in place. As a school, we would need to use books, keys and the Birdwatch Ireland Website to identify the different birds. This would need to be carried out on a regular basis from December to February. Once again, data in maths would be a huge area here, children would complete the Garden Bird Survey recording sheets.
I really like the idea of pairing up with older children to complete a treasure hunt, incorporating literacy. Both classes would love this idea and of course the trip to the playground as a follow up lesson would most definitely be a winner.
For younger classes, describe how you would plan and conduct a lesson on map making and explain how you might incorporate some online tools such as Google maps or Geohive
To begin this lesson with a senior infant class, I would read the story ‘We’re all going on a Bear Hunt’. This would engage the children. As the story moves from place to place, we could talk about the various places mentioned throughout the story.
I would then ask the children to think about what we would see if we went on a walk from our school grounds to a small bridge about 1km from the school. We would then complete the walk noting the natural and and man made features we see along the way – hedgerows, trees, a small stream, houses and a bridge.
On our return to school, I would split the class into groups and each group would make a 3D map of the journey using natural materials to represent the various features – stones, leaves, grass, twigs and branches.
To incorporate ICT, as a class group, we would then look at Google Maps and find the area we had just walked, discussing the various features we had seen and how these features look in Google Map.
A further lesson around this topic could be to print out the walk area from Google Maps and enlarge it. The children could the use BEEBOTS to recreate the walk using the BEEBOTS to move from the school to the bridge.
Some nice ideas Amanda. As the lesson begins with a real life situation and something the children can relate to, I feel this would engage them immediately. It’s a fun, hands on lesson and gives the children to opportunity to investigate and learn further after the lesson is complete. I feel cross Curricular links could be made to art from this lesson as a lesson on Van Gogh’s Starry night would lend itself perfectly.
Describe how you could apply some of the concepts and skills you have learned in this module to your own teaching practice in line with the STEM Education policy statement.
The Stem Education policy statement lists 4 pillars – nurture learner engagement and participation, enhance early years practitioner and teacher capacity, support STEM Education Practice, and using evidence to support STEM education. From looking at module 1 and at the Curious Minds website, I feel that by incorporating the Curious Minds framework into my teaching, I would be implementing the policy statement. I will apply the inquiry based, student centered approaches which encourage problem solving, starting off each lesson with a hook question. The lessons integrate science, technology, engineering and maths. I like the idea of real world relevance, such as the telescope at Birr Castle Demense. The framework gives the teacher scope to initially find out the student’s prior knowledge and understanding and gives the teacher the opportunity to reflect after the lesson. Lessons are exciting, interesting and embed student collaboration and digital literacy. I feel excited about using the Curious Minds framework in my 2nd – 4th classroom this coming year.