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From looking at the apps, I was surprised by how many satellites pass over Ireland every day. The five satellites I saw were the International Space Station (ISS), Starlink-3576, NOAA-19, Sentinel-2A, and Terra.
I already knew about the ISS, but I didn’t realise it passes over Ireland so often. It is used for science experiments in space.
Starlink-3576 helps provide internet services.
NOAA-19 collects weather information.
Sentinel-2A takes pictures of the Earth to help monitor farms, forests and the environment. Terra studies the Earth’s land, oceans and climate.
I enjoyed using the app because it showed me that satellites are always moving above us. Before this, I never really thought about how much we depend on them. They help with weather forecasts, internet, research and looking after our planet.I really enjoyed watching the HOME documentary. It made me think about how connected we all are to the environment and how important it is to look after our planet. Greta Thunberg’s speech and the Climate Aid 2020 video also reminded me that even small actions can make a difference.
In my 2nd Class, I would keep the topic simple and positive. I would use short clips from the videos and encourage the children to talk about ways they already help the environment, such as recycling, saving water or walking to school, linking it especially to the Green Flag work that we are doing that year. I think this would help make the learning meaningful and relevant to their everyday lives.
Continuing with peer learning, I would also pair my class with 5th or 6th class. The older pupils could help explain ideas, read stories about the environment and work with the younger children to make posters or take part in a simple recycling project.
These videos encouraged me to think about how I teach climate change. I want my pupils to understand the importance of caring for the environment while also feeling hopeful that their actions can have a positive impact.In response to activity 3, Climate Reporters – The Paxi video explained greenhouse gases in a way that I think my 2nd Class pupils would understand. It would be a good way to introduce the topic and encourage discussion.
The future temperature tool helped show how temperatures may change over time. I would use it with my 2nd Class to talk about why it is important to care for our environment, keeping the information simple and suitable for the level of the class.
I would use this activity in Science and link it with Geography and SPHE. We could talk about easy ways to help the planet, such as recycling, saving water and turning off lights. I would also pair my class with 6th Class as I found the 2nd Class group responded extremely well to peer work last year. The older pupils could help the younger children complete the activities and work together to make posters about looking after the environment. This would help build teamwork and confidence.
To improve the activity, I would add more hands-on tasks, such as sorting pictures into good and bad choices for the environment or making a class promise to save energy.
Overall, I think this is a fun and engaging activity that would work well with my 2nd Class and has the scope for multiple lessons.I like the prize incentive too Rachel, nice idea to provide some motivation to help the children to focus on the topic.
After reading Liston’s (2018) Unravelling STEM: Beyond the Acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, I thought about how STEM is used in my 2nd Class. The article explains that STEM is more than teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths as separate subjects. It is about helping children solve problems, work together and make connections across different subjects through real-life learning.
I personally enjoyed activities 1 and 2 from the Weather and Climate resource. Activity 1, Is it Weather or Climate?, helps pupils understand the difference between weather and climate in a simple way. I found the worksheet to be clear and easy to follow. My children could talk about how the weather affects walking to school, playtime or activities such as going to tennis lessons in the local tennis club or walking to the local swimming pool.
Activity 2, Weather Detectives, encourages pupils to observe and record the weather. I think my class would enjoy becoming ‘weather detectives’ and keeping a daily weather chart. We could also link this to Maths by creating simple graphs and looking for patterns over time. I would include a practical hands on challenge where pupils design and build a simple rain shelter or rain gauge using recycled materials. I would also include more opportunities to use tablets or weather websites to compare our observations with weather forecasts.Its such an interesting topic to teach and learn about for kids of any age.I also thought activity one would be more suited to my class and I liked the idea of writing / cutting the sentences – would be very useful for the different abilities in my class next year.
If I was using the rockets activity in my classroom, I would build it around a fun and engaging story eg: “Captain Karl,” a young astronaut whose rocket keeps failing to launch. He needs help from expert student scientists to figure out how to make it fly successfully.
After this introduction, I would present the balloon rocket experiment. Using string, tape, straws and balloons, students would work in small groups to create their own rockets. We would test them across the room, measuring how far they travel and discussing what affects their speed and distance — balloon size, angle and how much air is used. This would naturally lead into a class / group discussions.
To extend the learning, students would design their own “missions,” deciding what planet they’re traveling to and present their results through posters or short videos during Space Week. The children would have great fun recording their launches on tablets and then rewatching them with the class on the whiteboard.
This activity would support science learning while also encouraging teamwork, creativity and storytelling, skills that are also important to develop in the classroom.
There are so many ideas to take from this module of the course and the children would have great fun for the duration of science week studying different topics and carrying out different experiments.
Great job, Karen! Your lesson sounds fun and hands-on and perfect for helping kids understand how to dress for different weather. The activities are really engaging and playful.
I chose the “Animals in the Cold” activity from ESERO for my 2nd class. It’s a great way to help children understand how animals like polar bears and penguins stay warm in freezing places.
1)We would start by having a class discussion about these animals, chatting about what they look like, where they live, and how they survive in the cold.2)Then we would do a simple experiment using Vaseline on one hand, placing both hands in cold water and feeling the difference. The children would love it and it would help them to understand how blubber works like a warm coat.
3)To follow up, we could test different materials including cotton wool, bubble wrap and tinfoil. We would wrap these around cups of warm water to see which keeps the heat in best. We would check the temperature and see which one works best at keeping the water warm.
This activity supports STEM by encouraging the children to ask questions, predict, test and observe. It also ties in well with our science strand on Living Things and helps build early investigation skills in a fun and meaningful way.
Introduction: The Planets
1. Introduce the 8 planets using flashcards or a poster.Use a catchy planet song to help remember them (Eg: “The Planet Song” on YouTube)
Ask children to repeat the names and match them to flashcards.
2. Class discussion: What’s in Space? Stars. The moon. Space is very big and quiet! Astronauts wear suits to breathe.Development :
1. Aliens! Let’s Imagine… Question: “What do you think aliens might look like?”
Show fun cartoon alien images (not scary).2. Activity: Create your own alien using playdough / clay (linked with art)
NB points to consider: “What planet is your alien from? What does it eat? How many eyes?”
Let children name their alien and decorate it.3. Create an alien passport (linked with English)
Closure:
Present their alien to the class and tell the children what planet their alien is from.
The activity set that I would focus on is the sun and shadows. In this lesson, I would begin with the story and activity mentioned ‘Bears Shadow – My Sky Tonight activity to get the children working with light and thinking about shadows.
I would then take class outside several times during the school day to observe how shadows change as the sun moves across the sky. Each group would place a toy dinosaur / animal on the ground and use chalk to trace its shadow every hour. Each group would measure the length and direction of the shadow and record the time. (This activity would link in nicely with a lesson on graphs in maths).Back in the classroom, we would talk about what they noticed eg:how shadows are long in the morning and late afternoon. We would discuss why this happens and how it relates to the sun’s position in the sky.
To help the children understand the science behind it, I would use a flashlight (as the sun) and a globe or ball (as the Earth) to show how the Earth’s rotation creates day and night and causes shadows to move.
