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Consider how many songs/ poems/ art can you think of to connect us with the night sky?
Songs:
‘A sky full of stars’ coldplay
‘Fly me to the moon’ Frank Sinatra
‘Counting stars’ One Republic
‘Stairway to heaven’ Led Zeppelin
‘Starman’ David Bowie
‘Yellow’ Coldplay
‘Space Oddity ‘ David Bowie
‘Wishing on a star’ Rose Royce
Theme from Star Wars Hank Marvin
‘Vincent’ Don McLean
‘Bennie and the jets’ Elton John
‘When you wish upon a star’
‘Starlight’ Muse
‘We are all made of stars’ MobyPoems
‘A little Boy’s Dream’ Katherine Mansfield
‘A Slash of Blue’ Emily Dickenson
‘I Must Go Down To The Sea Again’ Spike Milligan
‘Twinkle twinkle’
‘Ah, Moon and Star!’ Emily Dickenson
‘A Night-Piece’ William Wordsworth
‘The Light of Stars’ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
‘Bright star, would I were as stedfast as thou art’ John Keats
‘The Lamp once out’ Natsume Soseki
‘Stars’ Sara TeasdaleART
The starry night, Vincent Van Gough
Amsterdam, Aert Van der Neer
Moonlight, a study at Millbank, Turner
Fishermen at sea, TurnerTo incorporate the needs of nocturnal species into my school biodiversity plans I would look closely at where the school is with regards to their biodiversity plan and work from there. Using my school as an example, the area of biodiversity has been a focus over the past few years. We have focused on teaching the children about biodiversity. We had guest speakers in who discussed what is was and why it is so important. We looked closely at the importance of saving the pollinators- focusing on butterflies and bees. The gardening committee came up with ideas and we decided on creating a bug hotel and wildflower garden at the front of the school. The school council reps got involved and there was a whole school competition to name the garden and bug hotel. Parents and children volunteered over weekends to help dig out and plant the garden alongside constructing the bug hotel. It has been very successful and having engaged with the module today I can see there is so much scope to delve deeper and look at light pollution and the needs of nocturnal species and update the plan to include this. Some easy and worthwhile additions would be around the teaching of light pollution and discussing dark skies. The children would learn about the importance of dark skies for nocturnal animals such as bats and owls and discuss how light pollution can negatively impact them. There are useful websites mentioned in the module to use as resources. The addition of night cameras to investigate the nocturnal activity would be very useful. Incorporating the building of bat boxes and perhaps adding more hedgerow to the periphery could also be impactful. Children could gather information on light pollution on the school grounds. Complete surveys on sources of light pollution. Problem solve solutions to lower light pollution- extend this further and speak with the board of management and perhaps change light fittings to shielded downward lights, change bulbs and set timers etc. The student council reps can engage with their own classes and send feedback through surveys. I think this would be a natural nest step based on the work already done in our school on biodiversity.
Really great ideas here. I particularly like the idea of focusing on a ‘dark sky garden’ and incorporating night blooming flowers to attract nocturnal pollinators and to act as a living lab for pupils.
Looking at how light pollution is impacting my local area and how to engage the learners in my classroom is a very relevant and interesting area to reflect upon. Living and working in west Dublin light pollution is a definite area of concern. It is a built-up urban area with light pollution coming from street lights, houses and businesses. Light pollution not only affects star-gazing but also impacts greatly on local wildlife and human health. Stars and constellations that were previously visible are no longer so due to sky glow from artificial lights. Wildlife in particular nocturnal animals are impacted greatly. These animals rely on the dark sky for hunting and unnatural light is having a negative affect on this and impacting their breeding. Birds and insects are flying into buildings and lights. Light pollution also disrupts human’s circadian rhythms, impacting sleep patterns and negatively impacting health.
To engage the learners in my classroom, I would use many of the resources mentioned in this module. Important to start with the obvious question of ‘What is light pollution’ a brainstorm on this would be interesting, to get an idea on prior knowledge. The video ‘What is light pollution’ would be useful to watch after the brainstorm, to compare class ideas on the topic to it and engage discussion. The video ‘exploring colour’ would also be useful. Looking at and exploring the different types of light pollution, how to measure light pollution. Then once children had a good understanding of what it is, they could look at investigating light pollution in the local area, maybe focusing on the school and school grounds. The children could complete surveys, looking at lights around the grounds, are they shaded? Is there wildlife nearby that might be affected? After they compile their data, they could analyze the results integrating data and graphs from the maths curriculum. They can brainstorm and problem solve solutions – e.g. use shielded lights outdoors, use warm bulbs, use timers etc.
Perhaps engage with a rural school and compare findings. Solutions could be brought forward to the student union and some of the suggestions implemented.I would choose to do an activity based on seeing stars, looking at the plough in two different ways.
You could begin this activity with a KWL chart on constellations. Use pictures of constellations or the stellarium app to investigate different constellations that can be seen in different locations. There are some lovely worksheets on the different constellations and drawing your own constellation, these would be lovely to use prior to focusing in on the plough.
The plough activity – seeing it from 2 sides:
I think this is a really hands-on and engaging activity for children and can be easily adapted to work for all age groups. There is plenty of integration across maths (using rulers and measuring) and art (creating the constellation using different materials). The youtube clip is also very clear and a great resource to use prior to making the constellation. I think middle and senior classes would be best suited to this activity and would grasp the concept best, however more junior classes could still engage with this and it would be interesting to see how much understanding of the concept is grasped on their level. The video gives an option to use straws and blu tack for the younger learners.
I think this activity would be great for pair or small groups. I like to give the children the option to also work alone, as this is sometimes their preference. So being flexible around this is always important and gives the children a sense of ownership on decision making. This activity would make such a great and eye catching display being hung from the classroom or corridor ceiling. The children can extend the learning by researching facts about the plough and writing up and displaying facts alongside their models.
To extend this further – could they make a different constellation- and try to be as accurate as possible? They would have to try to problem solve the length of string to use which would be a very challenging task with lots of critical thinking and group work involved.Great use of the app – I really like the idea of looking at the constellations from different cities and comparing and contrasting to the children’s own city. Lots of scope for discussion.
I really liked the ESERO 30 day and night activity. They activity on nocturnal and diurnal animals is great. I like the idea of giving the set of pictures to pairs/groups and asking them to sort them into groups…. and explain your groupings. This creates a lot of critical thinking and observations. Some groups may classify according to nocturnal/ diurnal … interesting dialogue is created in any case. The teacher can then focus on the nocturnal and diurnal category. Children can once again explore similarities and differences… then discussion around the features or adaptations. This can then lead to researching nocturnal animals – creating projects based on these animals and interesting facts or perhaps posing a question and asking the children to research this in groups. It allows for the children to take ownership of the topic and create projects collaboratively- children are given autonomy over how to produce these projects. The teacher can incorporate a choice board on what animals to research and what tools to use e.g. On large sheets of paper/ typed on computer using word and printed/ powerpoint presentation etc. for example- a child with severe sld who uses assistive technology can make the choice of typing using word (voice to text) and will not stand out as different to the rest of the class peers. Also the child can fully engage without writing or spelling being a barrier. Each child can take on a specific role within the group, or buddy up (peer tutoring). Again this allows for each child to engage and also for all to feel included. The children can work collaboratively and present their work. I love the idea of giving the children as much freedom to explore and engage with a topic as possible. Teacher’s role is to organise (ensure groupings are well matched with mixed abilities/ peer mentoring opportunities) facilitate and clarify. Ensuring all children engage at their level without highlighting anyone as different following the universal design for learning approach.
I think all children are fascinated with animals, science and facts at this age. One there is a high interest in the topic the children will really engage and love the idea of creating projects. I feel any age group from 1st class up can engage in this inquiry based approach.I really liked the cross curricular integration that you planned for here. You tied in links to history and maths, which embeds the learning and allows for rich exploration of the topic.
Activity Set – Rockets – Over the course of a week the children could engage in more than one activity and draw conclusions and observations around different activities and which one was best / why? etc.
A great stimulus would be to use the picture book ‘ Aliens in underpants save the world’. This would engage the children and open up discussion, question and answering around prior knowledge and ideas on space.
Focusing in on rockets and space travel- show the class some real life footage of rockets being launched (incorporate old footage and recent) this incorporates history (then and now- similarities and differences in footage (black and white) and design of rockets -size, appearance etc.)
Activity – draw and design your own rocket
Activity – mouse rocket – investigate/ predict/ discuss results/ change the size of the bottle/rocket and see what happens?
Activity – Balloon rocket – marvin and milo- investigate predict and discuss results
Compare and contrast between the mouse and balloon rocket results – discuss results and possible reasons?
Extension – fizzy rocket experiment – looking at the chemical reaction
This theme of rockets can also feed across other subjects – art junk art rockets/ english- rocket acrostic poems/ shape poems Maths – 2d shapes- making rockets from 2d shapes Geography- mapping / satellite imagery google earth stellium online etc.
So many great opportunities to link across a very engaging theme.I love how you have planned this and incorporated allowing the children to apply their learning to other related things, for example the making of paper planes after they have investigated and learned about the rocket mice. A great myth to connect to here could be the greek myth of Icarus … and drawing the connections of wings of a plane / rocket and birds etc. There could be great discussion here to really allow the children to explore and look at similarities and differences… materials etc.
I think the online tools and resources are so useful for engaging the children and creating powerful learning experiences.
I would love to use some of the following online resources:
Marvin and Milo: Cartoon storyboards – visual and engaging for children to read and explore. A great selection of useful activities – prior questioning/ predicting results really important to expand learning and understanding. Questioning the class and discussion of results. Very clear and printable resource that is engaging for the children and allows for hands-on stem based inquiry and learning.
Another resource I really liked and hadn’t heard of was the astronomy picture of the day. This is a great way to engage the children in meaningful discussions about what they can observe in the picture. Great for embedding new language and for posing a question/ problem and letting the children explore. It can be a great stimulus to start a topic with. A sort of ‘maths eyes’ idea but for science!
ESA Kids:
Fun and engaging. The children can access a virtual tour exploring the planets. Great downloadable resources and worksheets to use in the classroom. This website is very engaging, and great for opening up discussions, researching facts etc.
Great to see pics of this to really get an idea of how creative and useful this aistear theme can be. It can integrate across so many curricular areas and is so engaging for the children.
