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- Prepare a school project to collect Piseógs/Traditions/Stories of the Night. <i>For Example: </i><i>Dúchas</i><i> Folklore Commission</i>
Unfortunately there is no Dúchas listing for my present school, but my own primary school where I went to school has a significant listing with a massive amount of stories and folklore connected to the night – so I was in that school I would I think print the actual handwritten account and use it as a primary source in history. Some of the family names are still living in the Parish which would be an incredible link to the past. Many of the features mentioned are still standing in the parish, including a tale or two about the púca. It would be great to tell some ghost stories maybe under the parachute or even just in the classroom with the lights off (depending on age level and maturity of class of course!) or even just bring them home to their own families. I would use Google Maps to anchor the places mentioned in the stories to the local parish. Then I would use this as an impetus for the children to collect their own ghost stories from their parents or grandparents and perhaps do a side by side collection or place on a Google slides. It would be obviously a great project to do at Halloween. It would be fantastic to do.
Prepare a school project to collect Piseógs/Traditions/Stories of the Night.<i></i>
Multiple times trying to post this – long post written the last time, frustrating!
The school I am presently teaching in is unfortunately not listed on the Dúchas folklore collection, but my own school that I attended is, and has many fascinating entries, many related to night time, Halloween and spooky themes. Some of the families are still in the parish. I would print off the entries, the handwritten ones, and explain primary and secondary sources in history. Then we would have a session reading them and perhaps sending them home to read with families connected with the entries, or the houses even. Many of the places listed as connected to the stories are still standing and in the parish so I would use Google Maps to create a project with them all mapped and put that on the school website. Finally I would ask the children to interview their own parents and grandparents to see have they any stories from their own childhood connected to myths and folklore and especially Halloween or dark themes.
It really is a great resource and I’m glad to be re-introduced to it – I found a listing in it written by my own Grandmother in 1937!
Lovely list and very accessible too. It’s such a nice idea to use themes like this and pieces of music and art to introduce it – it adds a lovely cross curricular element to the learning.
I like the plan you have put in place here – I will be working in SET too next year and would love to incorporate the course materials into my work with groups and individuals. Sorting activities and themed and correctly levelled materials are one way of doing so. I feel that getting pupils from SET into nature and the school garden would pay definite dividends in terms of engagement and general regulation.
- How you would incorporate the needs of nocturnal species, especially those that rely on dark skies into school biodiversity plans
Richard Louv,mentioned in this module, said that you cannot love what you do not know so I would start by identifying the nocturnal species in our school garden. I like the idea of the moth box – we could take a sample of moths by setting or getting ready in evening and then placing it in garden overnight, then checking the next day. Photograph and identify. The using photos create some symmetry art as suggested in one of the videos in the module. Having shown the night time invertebrates we might then identify the possibility of bats in the garden or in surrounding neighbourhood. There is a cheap diy version of bat detector involving making an ultrasonic microphone and recording bats then identifying them using laptop. Depending on age level of students that could be incorporated into the scheme of work. Having done so, we would then examine the interdependence of the species and look at food chains. Following this research ways to make a garden space more amenable to moths and bats (leaving long grass, holes in trees, loose slates on roof etc). Further, look at lighting in area – does the garden suffer from light pollution (glare, waste light or wrong coloured light) Are there ways we could mitigate this?
Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
I teach in Dublin city centre. There is a high level of street lighting, shop and house lighting, and traffic lighting. I think a good time of year to engage learners would be winter, perhaps after Halloween or the new year, as it is much easier for learners to see the lighting earlier in the day.
We could focus on our school garden and the streets around our garden. This seems a more mangeable focus for the class.
We could count lights around the perimeter of the school garden and create an overhead map of the area.
I could take photos in the garden after dusk to show the visible light. I would make sure that the white balance is set correctly. We would then examine the direction of the light, the colour of the light and the quantity of the light in the photos.
During school we could examine the street lights and see what shielding if any is in place on them.
Following this we could write to Dublin City Council to recommend shielding or different colour light if necessary.
This sounds quite similar to where I am from in rural south – There is a local GAA pitch and a newly installed walking track and when it is in use it is incredibly bright. In one way, it actually shows how dark the sky is when it is not in use! Even in my family home, which has a yard with machinery, there is quite a lot of light pollution. The lights are neccessary for security and for safety, and up til now I hadn’t fully appreciated how this might be affecting viewing of the night sky. I htink it could be quite easily fixed with some of the suggestions here. I do know that the light colour is on the warmer side, and I know from this module that is preferable.
Create an observing plan for autumn that shows which planets are visible in the evening sky.
I know the assignment asks for autumn, but I think I would do this lesson in December, or January, as you would have decent chances of viewing objects at 5/6pm, early enough not for it to become an issue too close to bed time! I work with 5th Class, so I think I would allow the students to create their own observation charts in class using Stellarium. I would make sure to choose the correct level of light pollution for our area. Having just checked beginning of December there, Saturn seems to be nice and prominent around 6pm, so that would be a good one to start with perhaps. I would encourage the children to view the same patch of sky at a few different times through the evening and see if they notice anything. I would encourage them to stand in the same spot, and use a point of reference to see if the relative position of the celestial bodies they observed had changed. I would get them to log it over a few nights. I would then get groups or individuals to compare and contrast the next day.
Lovely lesson Olivia, throughtful approach to accessibility, and nice integration of creativity and design with the Star Scopes. I really like the idea of the sensory approach too, its a lovely gentle way of introducing the night sky and it makes it fun and enjoyable rather than overwhelming. And the sticker to celebrate is a fantastic touch to finish it out.
Construct a sundial in your immediate area or plan for your school grounds to see where a sundial could be placed
First I would visit the Obliesk near my school, which has 4 sundials, one for each cardinal point. As its close we would visit at two different times. Open questions – what do you notice about the sundials, what are they used for, what are the Roman numerals for?
Then we would examine a metal garden sundial I have myself. Allow pupils to come up with ideas for building their own. Plan, build, test, review, redo process.
As a class evaulate different designs and then consider how we would make a large one in the yard. Begin with observing and chalking own shadows. Then move to measuring and marking time using watch.
Observe over number of days. Revisit later in the year, after solstice for example. Linkages outside Science and Geography – time in Maths, timepieces in history.