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I love the idea of adding bat boxes to your school grounds, I wonder if I could convince my school principal on that one!
I would engage my class in exploring biodiversity in our local area by beginning with a discussion and eliciting prior knowledge from the children of the biodiversity area, The children are quite familiar with the biodiversity as they have had some wonderful talks from guest speakers from Heritage Schools, Ireland. Working in groups, the children would identify the animals that are active during the day and night and those active at dusk and dawn and create a habitat map. The children would then investigate how light pollution may affect these animals. They would do this through the many excellent resources presented in this course.
The children would then research small, achievable changes that can be made by the school community that and in a group, come up with solutions to help with light pollution around the school. They would design a presentation and present it to stakeholders, hopefully convincing them to reduce light pollution in the locality.School Project entilted: Piseógs, Traditions and Stories of the Night. I would complete this lesson in the run up to Hallowe’en and link the unit of work into the history of Hallowe’en.
I would begin this lesson by getting the children to complete a homework task and talk to an older person at home about traditional Irish stories and tales that they grew up, stories about the night and their hallowe’en traditions. The children could then use ‘Dúchas’ website to further research similar stories. I would then ask the children if they experience darkness like they hear about it in the stories. I would guess a lot of children wouldn’t as many of them live in a village and housing estates with street lamps.
Next, I would get the children to compare and contrast hallowe’en then with the hallowe’en they experience and discuss how different hallowe’en would have been before the introduction of electricity. Finally, the children would complete a STEM challenging by asking them ‘how could we reduce light pollution while also keeping safe while trick or treating’ and see what the children come up with!Your suggestion of presenting to the wider school community made me think that it might also be a good idea to present to the wider community itself. I love projects that can be connected to the local community and this project certainly is. The whole community is a stakeholder when it comes to light pollution and diversity!
This is so lovely to hear of a real life example of a community actively trying to reduce light pollution in the community. Before this module it was not really something I had thought about but I look forward to exploring this topic with my class, I love any opportunity to encourage my children to be active citizens in their community.
Question 1:
I think that this is such a fantastic topic to teach for making home-school links, it always encourages children to get outdoors and also become active citizens in their community, all of my favourite components of a unit of work.
I would use the framework for inquiry to begin the unit and elicit prior knowledge from the children and encourage them to ask questions and note their wonderings. Although my school is in a rural area, many of the children live within the village in housing estates with lots of street lights so this is extremely relevant to them. After exploring what light pollution is, I would make a box planetarium with the children to see them impact of light pollution, I would then encourage the children to do some homework, with the help of an adult and make some observations of their own home at night time. The children can then compare their situations and come up with some light pollution solutions together as a team. I would show the children the ‘Globe at Night’ map and encourage the children who have a big interest in the topic to continue to be citizen scientists and record their observations through the app.For this assignment I will explore how I would engage my fourth, fifth and sixth class students with a unit of work on observing the moon. I would do this at the beginning of the school year and the best dates of this are 8-10 September 4-8th October, 2-6 November and 3-8 December. I would complete the moon observations in the mornings as this is the best time of the day to observe the moon. I would use the resource ESERO 62 as a resource and begin the unit of work with an engaging prompt such as photograph of the moon, I would then ask the children some questions and encourage them to share their wonderings.
We would then use a simple model of a moon and the sun, made by using a ball and a lamp to investigate how the moons phases are caused by the changings positions of the Earth, moon and sun. Throughout the project the children would maintain a moon observation long, recording the moon’s appearance through sketches, times, dates, observations etc.Having read “Unravelling STEM: Beyond the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics” I can see that STEM is much more than teaching the subject topics science, technology, engineering and maths as individual topic areas. STEM is about problem solving and creating real world learning experiences where children can think critically and solve problems that are applicable to the world that they are living in. There are some fantastic ideas on how to incorporate STEM across all curricular areas in the course so far. I think the take away I have from this paper is that real world problems should be identified, perhaps a t a local level first and the children should be encouraged to use Science, Technology, Engineering and maths to come up with solutions to these problems. I really enjoyed the concept of ‘The simple pen’ – it proves that STEM does not have to be overly complicated or difficult, just chose a problem and try solve it!
Hi Niamh,
I agree with you and think that creating a physical sundial and showing the connection with the movement of the sun with time might help some of those children who struggle with the concept of time. It is a great topic to link with maths.
One year on Earth- Understanding the Seasons
I would enjoy using this resource to teach my fourth, fifth and sixth class students. I think it is a great way to link the Earth’s relationship with the Sun and aid the children’s understanding in the seasons.
If completing this activity with my class I would begin my using a prompt, whether that be a picture, a video or perhaps taking them outdoors to make observations. I would then elicit any prior knowledge from the children and encourage them to write down their questions and wonderings. As well as using the resource provided, I would encourage the children to keep a nature diary throughout the school year, recording observations and data, sketching seasonal changes and taking photos. I think that this activity links very well with other curricular areas such as maths, art and history. It is also a fantastic topic to get the children outdoors for learning too.