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Catherine, I love your ideas for the poetry. I think the 5 senses idea is a brilliant one- it would really bring night-time to life and make the topic really vivid for the children.
Thanks for sharing.
The following are the ones I could think of that connect us to the night sky- songs were the most extensive category!
Songs
Star Star by the Frames
A Sky Full of Stars- by Coldplay
Colaiste Lurgan’s version of a Sky Full of Stars is also worth a look! We had a class that learned a short section of this for a school performance before.
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Vincent (Starry Starry Night) by Don McLean
Space Oddity by David Bowie
Rocket Man by Elton JohnPoems
The Starlight Night by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Bright Star by John Keats
I Saw the Land in the Evening by Emily Dickinson
Stars by Emily BronteArt
Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. I know it was featured in the module but definitely the most famous one I could think of. When I had 4th class previously we created a giant mural version of this- the kids loved it!
Starry Night by Edvard Munch
Starlight Night by Georgia O’KeeffeElizabeth, I love your idea of exploring a particular species in detail, such as the swallow. I feel like specific animal studies are not something that is done as commonly as it would have been when we were in school- e.g. I remember clearly learning all about “The hedgehog” in my nature studies copy!
I love how you are integrating this with the Merlin Bird app also, to help with song identification!
We are very lucky in that our school was chosen by our local county council to receive a school “Biobox” as part of a pilot initiative to support biodiversity. A particularly useful resource included in the box was fans/swatches of trees, insects, plants etc. to help with species identification (like the ones seen in this module).
Based on these resources, over a series of lessons, I would have the children in my class create their own mini fans of trees and insects, using the templates provided. These would not be as detailed as the main fans but would cover most of the local species we would expect to see at the local lake area.
We would then go on a walk to the lakes, and use our fans to help identify the native plants, trees and insects. The children would work in small groups and take photos of their findings.
We would also note the presence and location of artificial lighting around the lakes, and the type e.g. shielded/ unshielded, LED etc.
When back at the school, I would ask the children whether they thought we observed all insect/ animal species that usually live at the lakes, and why/ why not.
We would then discuss the concept of nocturnal animals, and explore a species in further detail e.g. bats using the resources in this module. We would finally discuss and explore whether we thought the street lights we observed around the lake area might affect these animals, and why/ why not.
Lyndsy, I really like your idea about the children counting the stars in the night sky- I feel it’s a lovely activity that can be used in junior and senior classes alike. It would be interesting for the children to compare their findings from different locations!
I used http://www.lightpollutionmap.info to get an idea of relative light pollution in different parts of my town. It is fascinating even to compare my parents’ estate to mine- I am slightly further out from the commercial zone of our town, and the light pollution, whilst not good, is relatively lower! I have no doubt after reading this module that it has an effect on local wildlife, particularly nocturnal animals such as foxes, hedgehogs, bats etc.
To engage the children in my class, I would do it in a similar way to the way we create Green Schools maps in our school. We use a blank map of the school (Fire Safety zone map photocopied!), which details the school and the grounds. We would display the map on the interactive whiteboard first, and come up with a key for lights and the categories they fall into e.g. shielded/ unshielded. We would do a walk around the grounds of the school, and the children would work in small groups to map out light sources and the category they fall into.
On returning to the classroom, we would use the data from our maps as a stimulus for discussion around ways to reduce light pollution.We are only on our second green flag, and have yet to do the energy theme, but this is a project that I think would work really well for that down the line!
This would require some preparatory work in school, as part of a series of lessons on space. We might first go outside with the ipads and practise using the compass tool to become familiar with rotating to find N/S/E/W.
We would then explore either Stellarium or timeanddate.com on the interactive whiteboard (I use the latter myself when looking for planets, and combine it with the compass tool on my iphone to orientate myself!) I think Stellarium might be more user friendly for children; it is somewhat clearer and I especially like the night vision/ red mode!)
One night a week, in lieu of another piece of homework, the children would be encouraged to go outside with an adult and use the Stellarium night sky map to explore the planets they can see. They would be given a simple worksheet where they could record the date, time and a simple sketch of the night sky. Based on today, for example, using the Stellarium Planets Visability function, I would expect to be able to see the moon, venus, and potentially Saturn after sunset but before my bedtime! Later in the autumn, with shorter daylight, there would be more planets visible for the children.Heather, I like the idea of asking the pupils to do the activity at roughly the same time each night, for consistency and ease of comparison! I also think the planet diary sounds like something the students would love.
I agree Louise, I feel that having the characteristics laid out like this almost make them into a checklist that will be useful in our future planning!
I think Liston puts it really well when she says “Stem-mania” has gripped the world! It can be reduced to a bit of a buzz word, and I know in practice I have been guilty of deciding on my lesson first (e.g. explicitly maths or science) and then labelling it as “STEM.”
However, what I get from Dr. Liston’s paper is that for a lesson to be authentically “STEM” it really needs to have certain characteristics, one being not to see maths or science as separate entities, but how they integrate and overlap. Another thing I take from the paper is that STEM is skills focused e.g. developing critical thinking skills.
I looked at the One Year on Earth- Understanding the Seasons resource. I really like how this resource is gently scaffolded, starting with what the children are already familiar with (photos of trees in different seasons), and building up from there. As such, I would use it exactly as it is laid out in the resource, but I would spend the most time on Activity 2 Part B (One year on earth). Prior to undertaking the activity, we would watch the Paxi video- Day, Night and the Seasons. I would divide the children into small groups of maybe 4, and I would allow the groups to choose between a country in the northern versus southern hemisphere. I think the activity makes an abstract concept much more concrete, and it would allow for lots of discussion. Part C could be an extension activity looking at the length of days in different seasons- I think this could tie in nicely with history lessons on Newgrange and the Winter Solstice.Kiddle looks like a great resource, that will help to ensure that online content is age appropriate. Thanks for the recommendation!
Irene, this sounds like a lovely lesson! I love your visual analogies e.g. the drinking straw, the hotel for animals etc., which really help to get key concepts across!
I like to use the children’s own experiences and things that are topical as a starting point. Given the extended heatwave we are having at present, and the topical weather reports and local impacts (e.g. hosepipe bans), I think local temperature over time would be a good general topic for the children to investigate. We would use the Research question planner to draft and finalise our research question, making sure that it is concise, feasible etc.
I would envisage the question being something like “How has climate change affected average temperatures in Kildare (or Dublin if data is not available!) over the past 50 years?”I would start by getting the children to do illustrated mind maps to elicit prior knowledge about what they have already learned about weather vs. climate, and how the high temperatures affected them over their summer holidays.
We would use the ESA “weather vs climate” PDF activities 1-3 to help guide our lessons.Over a series of lessons, the children would be engaged with measuring daily temperatures, using the TEAL tool, and researching online about local temperatures (e.g. through a teacher-designed Padlet to ensure links are age appropriate).
While anecdotal rather than scientific, the children could also interview their grandparents about what summer temperatures like when they were younger.
The children could work in small groups and create presentations on Google Classroom of their findings, and present them to the class.
Eleanor, I like how you have included ideas for adapting the activities for different classes, such as the daily weather chart!
Irene, this is absolutely fascinating! I think the children would be in awe of this. It reminds me of the Flight Radar website which I also came across recently, where the children can track flights and flight times from one country to another, and can be integrated with so many subjects e.g. geography, maths etc.