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I also think inviting in a guest speaker to talk about their role is a great way to engage the children. I will defintely look into this for the next school year. I wonder is it possible to organise a field trip to a working fish farm? Does anyone know if this is possible?
The ARC online lessons and resources developed by BIM are an excellent tool that I can see myself using with me senior class in the coming school year. The first video, What is Aquaculture?, gives a very good introduction and insight into how fish are farmed.
The second video, Nutrition of Seafood explains the benefits of eating seafood looking at the different minerals and nutrients in salmon, oysters and mussels and explaining how they benefit us.I liked how it included the Irish myth, The Salmon of Knowledge.
Examining the different jobs that are involved in fish farming is very interesting and might inspire some of the children to think of these as potential careers. And finally, looking at how important it is to protect the environment, looking at organic foods and sustainability in the final lesson is also very insightful.
I envisage that these resources will make STEM learning more interesting and relevant in the classroom. The lessons will encourage the children to investigate real life topics e.g. aquaculture, ecosystems, sustainability, food production and tourism through hands on activities, critical thinking and problem solving.
I would use these resources to promote curiosity, teamwork and inquiry based learning which are the key ams of STEM in our curriculum.
Regarding the School Self Evaluation process, teachers will be encouraged to work together to improve STEM teaching across the school. By looking at and reviewing our current teaching, sharing knowledge and ideas, monitoring the pupil engagement and learning outcomes we will identify our strengths and weaknesses.
I plan on sharing the videos and online resources with the teams in charge of STEM and with the senior class teachers in our school. We as a staff could look at and review our school plan to include topics such as Aquaculture which is very relevant to a school located in the NW of the country where there are 2-3 fsh farms/industries on our doorstep.Aquaculture is predominant in many coastal communities particularly along the northwest, west and southwest coast of Ireland. These are areas where due to it’s geography, it’s not very suitable for agriculture. Rocks dominate the landscape, soil quality is poor, there’s little shelter and infrastructure. However,aquaculture is best suited to the area between Donegal and Kerry due to the weathering of our coast creating sheltered bays, inlets, islands and Killery Fjord, giving ideal conditions for aquaculture.Salmon, mussels, oysters aqnd other seafood grow succcessfully in our clean, sheltered waters.Aquaculture also provides much needed employment in counties where employment opportunities can be limited.Opportunities in farming, processing, transport and in the spinoff economy e.g. shops, restaurants and other local businesses can help an area hold onto its young people and attract investment into the area.
I currently teach a senior class in an urban DEIS band 1 school in a coastal county and I have never taught about aquaculture which is bizarre.We have the perfect location and facilities to provide the children with concrete experiences in their own locality. Students will be able to connect science and geography to our coastal surroundings, take field trips to a mussel farm, oyster farm and seaweed industry which are all within 10km of their school. They will be able to connect the importance of aquaculture to the local economy, on employment and realising all the are employed through the aquaculture industry in the area. They will also come to understand how important it is to protect our coastal environments.
The ARC is a fabulous tool which enables all children whether they live in an urban/rural/coastal or inland location to access and learn about aquaculture in a fun and interactive way. Hopefully, it will continue to inspire and attract young people to consider a future in the aquaculture sector which is vital for its success.
Hi Claire, similiar experience here, teaching in a DEIS 1 school in a coastal town but the children would not have any experience or knowledge about aquaculture. We have a mussel farm, oyster farm and seaweed industry all within 10km of the school. It would be a fantastic opportunity to make use of these as they are on our doorstep.
Deirdre, I too will use the Teal tool with my class next year when investigating and predicting future temperatures and precipitation. I will also show the David Attenborough video Save Our Planet.
I think starting at looking what we can do in the classroom, school and home is a great place to begin. The children can make such small important changes to their own routines and bring them out into their homes and wider communities. We looked at ways we could save energy in the classrooms and school and came up with slogans and small tasks that the whole school could tackle every week e.g. lights off, board off when leaving the class room, last one out shut the door, open the door to let heat out, don’t be a drip-turn tap off fully.
Question- How have rising sea levels and erosion impacted the coastal towns and villages of our county? What effect will rising sea level have in the future?What can we do to lessen the imapct?
A report in the local paper predicted that 94 metres of land will be lost to the sea in the next 100 years.
I will use this newspaper heading as a trigger. As we live in a coastal county with many beaches and small towns and villages closeby, the children spend many days at the beaches or visiting the restaurants and ice cream shops. They are aware of some of the changes that have taken place to these places over the last couple of years as a result of storms, flooding and erosion, driven by climate change, which threatens to damage homes, ecosystems, and infrastructure.
We could use access a satellite image to see the coast as it is presently. The children could interview local officials, business owners and residents to find out what changes they have noticed and how they have impacted their lives over the years. We could look at reports in the archives of the local paper to see the impact of storms and flooding have caused over the years. We could compare photographs from past and present.
The children could predict how rise in sea levels, floods and erosion will impact the local beaches, businesses and amenities. We could build a 3d model of how a rise in sea levels would affect these villages.
I downloaded the Nose High Up in the Sky teacher guide and student workbook as I thought the children would love working through this resource. I also like the activities you mentioned in your post, what satellites can see and smelling the air. Very simple doable activities which the children will find fun and engaging. They are very easy to connect with the concept too. I will definitely use this resource next year.
I used the website satellite tracker3D.com to track some of the satellites over Ireland at the moment. I was fascinated to see so many satellites in the skies above us. The children would certainly enjoy this activity and learning more about satellites in general.
Some of the satellites are;
Starlink – 1741 satellite internet constellation project developed by Space X. It aims to provide high speed satellite internet access particularly to remote and underserved areas globally.
Object_L (6/13) space debris associated with the SL-8 rocket part of Russian Kosmos
Cosmos 972 (space debris)was a satellite launched by Soviet Union as part of Sputnik program in 1978
International Space Station- Earth Observatio
Oneweb-0537- broadband internet services
I agree with the point you made in your post Monica, small changes are a great place to begin. Turning off lights, closing doors to keep the heat in, turning down the heat in the classroom, composting, making sure we recycle and reuse when possible are effective changes we can make in the classroom which hopefully the children will bring out into their homes and influence others to make little changes too.
Sinead, thank you for listing some of the resources, particularly the storybooks and hands on activities you mentioned in your post. I like the idea of the visuals, displaying pictures showing clean vs polluted areas. I think displaying pictures of before and afters of certain areas of the world as shown in the movie would be quite thought provoking and trigger some very good wonderings and exploring. Example- the ice caps, the forests of Bolivia, coral reefs, Easter Island etc
I thought the movie Home was very powerful and thought provoking. It certainly would make a big impact on the children. I would show it in parts as it is a lot to take in and the children would have many questions along the way.
I would ask the children to complete the Carbon Footprint questionnaire at home with their parents and discuss their opinions and come up with a list of small manageable changes they could make at home and at school. This could link in with Green School activities in school.
I found the Climate Reporter activity would be an excellent resource to use with my 5th class when studying Climate and Climate Change. The Paxi video on climate change, greenhouse gases and melting ice caps is a simple, engaging video. I feel the children in my class would enjoy watching this video as an introduction or trigger to the topic of greenhouse gases.It would lead to lots of I wondering and exploring. As other participants have noted, the Teal tool to explore predictions about future temperatures is very interesting and a tool which could be used to investigate not only the changing temperatures in Ireland but of countries and regions where other children in our class have come from. I enjoyed the melting ice caps activity and will try them out next year. I am very interested in looking at Curious Minds in more detail as it appears to be a good resource.
I also like the idea of incorporating seanfhocail into the topic of weather. I have looked at the common english sayings but did not use the seanfhocail before. Alos I am sure children from other countries or from families from other countries have their own sayings which would be interesting to learn.
After downloading and reviewing Unravelling STEM: Beyond the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics by Dr. Maeve Liston, I am fairly confident that I am very aware of the importance of integrating engineering and maths into my STEM activities. Initially, engineering was often forgotten about but I find the children gain most insight from an integrated approach.
Activities 1 and 2 are excellent activities. Teaching 4th class, we look closely at weather and the devises used to collect weather data in our local area. The children love setting up the weather station and collecting data daily from it. We usually set up a home made weather station in a clear area in front of the school in a grassy area. We make a rain gauge and using graduated cylinders from our maths area, we measure and record on graph paper the ml of rain/precipartion collected. We use a commercial and home made anenometers to record wind speed and the children enjoy designing and making these. We record the temperature daily and graph the results and observe the rise and fall according to the seasons. We also observe and record, as best we can, the hours of sunrise and sunset. The children really enjoy these activities.
In 5th class we look at climate in more detail and examine the different climatic zones. Children enjoy learning about these through project work. They also make Kahoot quizzes for the rest of the class.
