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I wasn’t familiar with the two pictures you have mentioned in your examples Lorraine, but after looking them up they would both be a great stimulus for some art lessons with a class. They are also pictures that they probably wouldn’t be familiar with themselves.
2. Consider how many Songs / Poems /Art can you think of to connect us with the Night Sky?
Artists of various different genres and mediums have been impacted and influenced by nature throughout history. The night sky has had a big impact on a number of them.
Some songs that come to my mind that have been influenced by the night sky include:
– ‘A sky full of stars’ by Coldplay
– ‘Rocket Man’ by Elton John
– ‘Dancing in the moonlight’ by Toploader
– ‘Moonlight Sonata’ by BeethovenArtists have utilised the night sky in their artwork all through out history. There are some very famous paintings and pictures that often influence and stimulate art lessons in school. They include:
– The Starry Night by Van Gogh
– The Night Watch by RembrandtA very famous poem/song that we are all familiar with is ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ that we would all have heard when we were little children.
Paula I really like your idea to plant native trees and hedgerows around the school to help attract different wildlife back around the local area. The addition of animal safe areas and nesting areas for them with bat and bird boxes is a great idea too. These could also be used for teaching the children about these creatures if they were located on the school grounds.
How you would incorporate the needs of nocturnal species, especially those that rely on dark skies into school biodiversity plans?
One of the main things that we would do in our school would be to assess the lighting in the area, We would examine the security lights, car park lighting and any other lights around the area. We could rate the level of light pollution they could be causing and the impacts it may have on the nocturnal animals in the area. We could then create an action plan to help to reduce the impact of these lights.
Another area that we could explore is the tress and plants in the school and the school garden. How can we have a positive impact for creatures and insects in our locality. We can incorporate the green schools team to help to promote an insect friendly school garden that helps to attract nocturnal insects and create safe spaces for nocturnal animals.
1. Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
I would begin this exercise by exploring pollution with the children, what we think it is, how we can prevent it etc. I would then introduce the concept of light pollution to the class. What is it?, Where and why does it happen?
We would then examine our local area which is quite built up and has a lot of light pollution. We can explore the different aspects of our locality that are contributing to the light pollution and map them out. We can then look at ways we can reduce the light pollution, such as fully shielded lights and examining if all the lights in the area are necessary.
As a class we can discuss and compare our results and come together to form an action plan for our area as a whole and then an action plan that we as a class and a school can undertake ourselves to contribute to change.I really like Niall’s idea to compare the children’s home location to a contrasting one from somewhere else. if they live in a built up area compare it to a rural one or vice versa. I also like the home school links of examining other family members night skies and comparing the differences.
2. Create a short teaching resource using Stellarium/ WorldWide Telescope
Stellarium is an application that I was not familiar with before. The app is very easy to use and would be quick for the children to pick it up.
I would get the children to use the app to explore the sky around them at their home and in school. While in school I would get the children to explore the sky and try and locate different items such as: 5 satellites, 5 different stars and another unique item (such as a spiral galaxy). The children could then complete this activity at their homes and compare their findings to school. Did they find the same things, was it very different? I would also encourage the children to see if they could see the different stars/satellites in the sky themselves.
We could compare these results at different times during the year to see how our sky changes during the seasons.Lorraine I really like your idea to use Stellarium for home activities. This will promote the home school links as the children can use this resource with their parents and siblings. It could help to spark interesting conversations at home and could really engage the whole family in exploring the night sky!
Q.2 Construct a sundial in your immediate area or plan for your school grounds to see where a sundial could be placed
To introduce the topic to the class I would start a discussion about how we tell the time. Explore things like watches, phones, clocks, computers etc. and then pose questions about how people told the time before that. Question the children around sun dials, have we seen any, where are they located etc.
Explore with the children how the sun is used to tell the time, where does the sun rise, where does it set and what direction does it travel. We can then use this information to investigate suitable areas around the school premises that would be suitable for a sun dial. Explore ideas like accessibility to sunlight, objects of impact, the direction of the suns orbit on the area.
Utilise the video from module 1 to create sun dials as a class and then use them out at home.