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Q1.
The area where my school is on the outskirts of a well-populated and built-up town. Because of this, our view of the stars at night is affected. Although we are in a town, we are close to the country side. We could use the Globe at Night website and put the different townlands into the website. We could compare the areas to where our school is and discuss how they are different or maybe similar to the surrounding areas.
I liked the idea on the slides whereby the children set up a model streetscape with a box planetarium to investigate light pollution and how it may be affected in our area.
Allowing the children to explore on the dark skies finder website is also a useful way to make them aware of how light pollution is not only impacting the area close to our school but also the wider community and environment. Using this tool could be linked to map skills or when working on a specific country during a Geography lesson.I have never heard about it either and after using it during this course I can see that it is a great resource and that the children in my class would love it!
Q2.
To help my 6th class learn about the Moon, I would use Stellarium as part of a fun, hands-on investigation. Before going outside, I would set the location to a townland local to our school and choose the date and time of our lesson. Using Stellarium on the interactive whiteboard, the class would look for the Moon, identify its phase, and predict where they think it will appear in the sky. We would have previously discussed and learned about the different moon phases prior to this lesson.
We would then head outside to see if our predictions were correct. Pupils would work in pairs to find the Moon and record what they observed in their science journals, including the time, weather, direction, and a simple sketch of the Moon. If it happened to be cloudy, we could still compare Stellarium’s prediction with the weather and talk about why scientists sometimes can’t collect the data they were hoping for.
Back in the classroom, we would discuss what we found and how the Moon changes position and appearance over time.Hi Aisling. I like your idea of using the ESERO Framework to start the lesson. It’s a great idea to introduce the topic, get the children thinking and also helps us as teachers guide the lesson in the right direction. Your lesson is very clear and easy to follow and I would try this in my own classroom!
Q3. Plan how your students could “observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day”
The children could take part in a variety of activities to check the position of the sun at certain times of the day.
Firstly, they could go out the yard with a compass and when facing each direction, they could take note of the position of the sun. They could do this at the same time every day and note if there is a pattern. They could then repeat this at a later time and see what has changed and what position the sun is moving in.
Students could keep a diary at home and take note of what time the sun rises and sets at, what the weather is like at these times and then compare their findings with their classmates.
Using the video in module 1, students could make their own sundial and compare the positions of the sun with the times at each point on the sundial.
These activities could be incorporated with the strand Data in Maths, and the students could map out on a graph all of their findings.