[Elspeth Bolger]

Hi Karen, I like that you are using your playground for outdoor investigation and what is available to you. This lesson sounds lovely, this would be a great one to hold onto for when we get those random hot days that appear right before the summer holidays.

[Elspeth Bolger]

As we are a coastal school, we often do beach cleans and our school also takes part in PickerPals a litter-picking programme designed for primary school students. So I’ve decided to do a case study on

How does plastic waste affect our local environment and what can we do to reduce it?

We would begin with photograph of our local beach and do a bit of Think. Pair, Share.

What do you notice?
Would you enjoy spending time here?
What might happen if people left their rubbish behind?

Then I would show them a YouTube video. How Plastic Hurts the World, Scishow kids, https://youtu.be/VUUUxOl715s?si=CZWOKzDkR6blqv09
·       Discussion on the video

We would follow up with a Design Challenge

·       Challenge: Your school wants to reduce plastic waste.

In pairs, design one idea that could make a difference.

Examples:

Refillable water bottles
Lunchboxes instead of cling film
Recycling station
Plastic-free Friday
School clean-up day
Poster campaign
End lesson with a recap on the original question:

·       How does plastic waste affect our local environment?

·       What is one thing we can do to reduce it?

Each child completes orally/written statement:

·       “One thing I will do this week to reduce plastic waste is…”

[Elspeth Bolger]

I spotted and looked up information on each satellite:

STARLINK- constantly in active. These are Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite operated by SpaceX. Aim is to provide broadband.

ISS – passes over Ireland all the time but as the sky is clear tonight and the next pass over is due for tonight (South East) at 1:52am and 3.26am

COSMOS 1869 is an active Russian ocean-observation satellite.

CentiSpace-1 S6 tests technologies to enhance global navigation satellite systems.

Okean O was a joint Ukrainian-Russian remote sensing satellite designed for ocean observation, ecological monitoring, and weather forecasting no longer operational.

[Elspeth Bolger]

I’ve lost time from scrolling around the planet looking at all the satellites. It’s actually mad to see to the whole place mapped out. Kids would love this.

[Elspeth Bolger]

I agree that this video creates an emotional hook. I would be sure to carefully select which classes or age group I would show some of this video to as children can become quite anxious about climate change but I suppose it’s such a real issue that it’s important for them to be exposed to some factual and accurate content.

[Elspeth Bolger]

The video HOME would be a very useful tool to pick and choose mini clips from to show in class. Its visual aerial views and universal themes help promotes wonder and empathy.  The title “Home” reminds pupils that our planet is a shared place for plants, animals and human and we are all connected. The facts accompanied by the images towards the end of the movie could also be a good discussion starting point for a senior class.

Ireland Climate Action video is a good starting point for a lesson as some of the goals are aimed for the year 2030. Pupils from 3rd/4th class upwards could really engage with the gaols in the video.

If I was to use this in my classroom I would organise the pupils into groups and get them to brainstorm on a large A3 sheet about: What does climate change mean?/ How are humans harming the environment, any solutions? Then we would watch Irelands Climate Action video and discuss different points from the video like why might people choose electric cars.

After the video I would give each group a climate action challenge for example recycling plastic and get them to design a poster to help highlight the action , promote how it could help the environment and how to support the action.

Any school with a green schools committee could benefit from posters created from posters created from this lesson and the information could be passed on during assembly/green schools committee meeting.

 

Showing the pupils clips of Greta Thunberg is a good way of showing them that young people voices are listened to and how she is now a well known advocate for climate change. Her speeches highlight that youth are capable of driving global change. With all Youtube videos it would be important to pre watch and make sure the content is age appropriate

[Elspeth Bolger]

I like that you’ve linked in not just looking at global temps. but bringing it back to how it may impact Ireland. Bringing the issues closer to home often helps pupils engage with discussions.

[Elspeth Bolger]

The Pax video is a great resource. Lots of pre language would be needed before showing the video. Any school with a green house or poly tunnel could bring their class outside to give a more immerse feel for the greenhouse effect. We don’t but I wonder if sitting under the play parachute would provide the same analogy.

Activity three : Climate Reporter

The TEAL tool is a great starting point. The time slider is also useful to show pupils how data has changed over time. Pupils could be placed into pairs and given ipads so that they could interact with the TEAL tool at their own pace. With teacher support and the support of worksheet to help guide the predictions it would really get them thinking about the future.

Analyzing the end results would provide a great opportunity to get them thinking about how warmer temperatures could possibly effect their lives like birthdays, holidays, plants and animals. It would then provide them a chance to problem solve and write solutions on how to reduce the greenhouse effect for their future selves.

[Elspeth Bolger]

Unravelling STEM: Beyond the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (Liston 2018) is an interesting read and I agree that the buzz word STEM seems to be everywhere. When planning in my own classroom I always try to have all elements of STEM included in our activity but often it may only contain some elements. I like the idea of using Engineering Design Process (EDP) as a start point for future planning.

Lesson 1 : Is it weather or is it climate? I like this lesson. I would start with a KWL chart on what weather and climate is and see what knowledge they have. I like the ideas of using their birthday to figure out the differences between weather and climate.

Lesson 2: I like the use of the graph at the end to map out the results. Very visual for the end of the experiment and something that could be displayed and reported back to the school in assembly.

[Elspeth Bolger]

Hi Amy,

Our school is the same we don’t have an overall weather station or section to even pull out resources in our “science press” which is funny really as we talk about the weather every… single… day. There are some very simple resources I plan on making and keeping this coming year and hopefully find a good spot for a rain gauge which will see plenty of action.

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