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- Describe how you could implement a version of “Design Your own Dark Sky place” in your school/classroom?
It is paramount to encourage the children to discuss why it is important to reduce light pollution in our environment and ways that we can do it. We will look at various videos on this. We will then brainstorm what they think would be included in their own Dark Sky Place. I will show them one of my favourite paintings which is also Van Gogh’s painting “Starry Night” and ask them what details do they see in the painting e.g., the colours, textures etc. We will discuss how this painting shows how bright the stars are and how little light pollution there is involved in this painting and again why this is important.
We will then explore different groups of people such as local residents, star gazers, conservation rangers and light planners. I think this is a good idea to split the class into groups and take a specific group of people and make sketches and lists of what areas these groups may find important in their Dark Sky park or place. Each group must explore, plan, make and evaluate their ideas. I will then ask each group to present their specialised group, their diagrams and evaluate why they chose these elements that felt were important to these groups.
Yes I have done Starry Night as an art lesson and the children loved creating this piece through look and responding but also learning about the background of the painting.
Yes I agree with this idea about comparing with their ancestors. I have done numerous topics in various subjects where we compare now and then. Children love interviewing and gathering research from older family members, neighbour’s and older community members and researching books or sites regarding this topic.
- How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and
the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity.
Children learn better when they can fully immerse themselves in the task for example exploring themselves, gathering information, building and being in control of their learning. There are numerous activities which I think have numerous benefits to developing the learner’s skills. I think a great idea would to have a class scavenger hunt in the local park where the children can locate specific local species.
Another activity that our Senior School uses is using apps on the school iPads such as iNaturalist where the children can take photos of plants and insects in the school garden or the local park.
Some the children have undertaken activities like creating their own insect hotel where they create a safe space to view them by using pine cones and sticks to keep them together. Additional activities can be doing leaf and bark rubbings where the children can distinguish between different tree species.
With regards to impacts on light pollution experiments such as the Moth and Light Trap Experiment can be a great activity for the children to get involved with. It is paramount to get the children to reflect on their experiences throughout the activities and what they gathered and learned.
I agree I think this is a great idea to extend this project to the local community as well as in their own homes. It is brilliant for the children to be in control of their own learning and reflect on how they can help the community outside school and inside school to reduce light pollution to protect our dark skies.
I think a survey in the school is a great way to gather information and the activity of mapping the light sources and discussing their purpose.
A reflective piece on how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
Firstly, I would begin the lesson by asking the class do they know what Light Pollution is. We will brainstorm explanations and record them on the whiteboard. I will then show the class the video by The Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure describing what Light Pollution is. We will discuss the four categories of Light Pollution.
We will watch the video ‘Losing the Dark’ by DarkSky International to support the children’s findings and thoughts. We will get into pairs and record all the light pollution they believe is taking place in their area and how it could affect the area.
I will ask them to record a list of how we can help to reduce this in our area with help from The Dark Sky Planning Guidelines which I will provide for each pair. I would then get each pair to discuss their findings with the class and share ideas.
- Select from one of the activities in the Framework for Inquiry
I find looking and exploring constellations to be a fascinating area to cover in a class. I would begin the lesson by asking the children questions such as what are stars, what colour are they, have they ever seen a bunch of stars together and created pictures with them. I would follow this with introducing words such as The Plough, The North Star, Orion, The Big Dipper, Constellations and have a discussion about what they know about these words.
We would then watch a video to familiarise themselves with these words and what they look like in the night sky. I would show the children various examples of pictures where the dots are joined to create constellations. Videos such as SciShow Kids and Nat Geo Kids are great videos to use.
I would get the children to then take part in an art lesson to create popular constellations. You can use foam card, coloured star beads, ruler, scissors, plastic wool needle, wool and a pencil. You need templates of various popular constellations to help you create the constellations on your foam card. Copy the template onto the foam card and mark with a pencil. Use the plastic needle to puncture the foam card so that the beads with the wool threaded through it can be placed through them. You can then thread your wool and beads through the foam card to create the colourful constellation.
Allow the children to display their constellation to their peers and tell them which constellation they chose.
There are a lot of fantastic activities in this lesson to keep the children engaged and interested in this topic which I will take on board for lessons that I will use this coming year.
Thanks Elizabeth I found this experiment great to undertake with the children. I will try this in September.
1. Gravity/Weight – Assemble an Earth Tube and one other planet tube – decorate in a suitable manner
At the beginning of this lesson, I would have a discussion with the children about their prior knowledge of gravity and weight and to give me examples of different activities where things may fall faster or slower. For example, each of the children jumping up, dropping things from a height. Describe what happened and why. Following discuss the effect the Earth has on bigger objects with regards to weight and mass.
I would allow the children to pick another planet for example Mars or Jupiter and create an Earth tube and Mars tube using cardboard and paints. For Earth you can paint it blue for the sea, green patches to resemble the land and you can stick cotton wool on the tube to represent the clouds on it. For the Mars tube you can paint it red and stick darker patches on it to represent the craters.
Allow the children to research in groups or pairs and gather facts for each planet to compare. They can label and write out their findings and then share what they have found with their peers.
These are super ideas. I loved how you incorporated so many components and skills throughout these lessons especially the math’s elements and of course developing the children’s communication, contributing their prior knowledge and reflection skills.
I will definitely use some of these ideas in the classroom. I think actively going out to the school yard three times during the school day helps the children to fully emerge themselves in the activity and help them to remember their experience more thoroughly. I agree it is really important for the pair discussion. The children can reflect on their findings but also take on the findings of their classmates. Each pair may interpret different things and learn from their peers.
I have used the storybook “Welcome to Alien School” with infants before. I would begin by asking the children to predict what they think the story is about. When we have finished the story we will discuss the various activities that took place and what were their favourite and also what activities they think should be involved in Alien School. We brainstormed the things that were similar and different that took place in Alien School and our school. As a class we would discuss the uniform and the rules that may be included in Alien School along with what the school would look like. The class would be split up into groups and they would role play the different activities that would take place in their ideal Alien Schools.
Theis can be integrated with Visual Arts where the children create their own Aliens by designing what they would look like and describe their characters to the class in the Artist’s Chair.
I have linked this topic with music before where the children learn the song/poem “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom”. The children would familiarise themselves with the rhyming words in the song and we would create our own actions to go with the song to help the children to remember the lyrics.
