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Hi Mairead, I really like your art idea of using junk art by reusing and recycling materials is a fun way to involve the children in reducing, reusing and recycling materials and rubbish. They would really enjoy the activity!
My school is in a coastal area, so issues such as heavier rainfall, flooding, coastal erosion and storms are especially relevant. We have noticed the storms get more intense over the last few years. I would begin by asking pupils what changes they have noticed in our local area and with storms in the last few yearss. We could explore the school grounds and nearby area, looking at trees, plants, wildlife, litter, water and places where rainwater collects. The children could then investigate how climate change might affect our local community in the future e.g. coastal erosion and rising sea levels.
Three actions I would encourage my class to take are:
- Reduce waste – introduce a class waste audit and work towards reducing single-use plastics and food waste.
- Increase biodiversity – plant native flowers or create a small pollinator-friendly area in the school grounds. Planting marram grass in the dunes to replace the ones that have been lost to coastal erosion in liaison with the local council.
- Reduce emissions – encourage walking, cycling, scooting or car-pooling to school where possible and have a class “green travel” challenge.
Our school could then use sustainability and climate action as an area for development. We could ask pupils and staff what we are already doing well, gather evidence about waste, energy, transport and biodiversity, and then identify one or two realistic targets. We could monitor these over the school year and see whether our actions have actually made a difference. This would help make Development Education part of the school’s everyday practice and wider culture.
In our school, we do not have many children who are refugees attending the school. Having researched organisations in the area, I found that the Irish Refugee Council provides support to refugees through areas such as education, housing, employment and resettlement. There is also The Open Community, which helps communities across Ireland welcome refugees and supports local people who want to become involved in welcoming newcomers. Locally, the YMCA community could help with assisting refugees settle into our community in the area.
One thing we do in our school every year is have a multicultural week where we have assemblies, food tasting days, have parents come in and share about their languages and cultures. It is so important that every child feels welcome and included as part of the school community. I always have welcome on the door to my class in all the different languages that the children in my class speak to represent their own language. I always set up a buddy system for new children who are learning English to help settle them into school as well as using pictures e.g. about the school set up, routine etc to help the child as they learn English and settle into the class.Hi Noreen, Thanks for sharing about Doras. I had not heard of them , it sounds like a great organisation and one that as teachers we can tap into. I have used Google translate myself to help with communication in school with parents that have no English and have found it to be very helpful too.
Hi Emma, I love your suggestion of challenging gender bias and presenting the children with books and activities that highlight this as many children aroudn the world still face this issue today.
I would focus on SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, as it is something children can easily connect to in their everyday lives. We could begin by looking at how much rubbish our school produces in one week and asking the children where they think it all goes. We could then explore how waste and over-consumption affect children in Ireland, for example through litter, pollution and the amount of resources used to make the things we buy. We could also look at the global impact, including how waste and the production of clothes, toys and electronics can affect communities and the environment in other countries thus emphasising the importance of reusing and reducing our waste. I would encourage the children to become “sustainability detectives” and work together to find one problem in our school. They might organise a litter pick for the school once a week, set up a reuse/swap station, reduce food waste or create posters encouraging people to use reusable bottles and lunch containers. I would want the children to see that they are not too young to make a difference. A small action in their school or community can connect to much bigger global issues and help them understand that sustainability is something we can all take part in, rather than something that is only the responsibility of adults or governments.
Hi Siobhan, it is such a good point about sports and girls not wanting to play due to gender stereotypes. It something I have seen myself too on the school yard and something we all need to work on to help children feel they can participate and enjoy sport no matter what their gender is.
Gender stereotypes definitely impact children from a young age. I have noticed in my own teaching that many of the SESE books have stereotypes and are biased. For example, we tend to focus on men in history, in STEM etc. When teaching children about gender stereotypes, I asked the children to all draw a picture of a scientist. In a class of 28 where 14 girls and 14 were boys, most of the class drew a male scientist. I found this incredibly sad and disheartening but it was an excellent starting point for my lesson to teach children about gender stereotypes and introduce them to lots of females working in STEM. Development Education offers really useful ways to challenge these stereotypes. Using discussion, stories, role play, projects, videos and cooperative learning gives children the chance to question their assumptions and hear different viewpoints. An excellent video to show the class is the NIKE ad “run like a girl”, it is a great starting point for talking about stereotypes and how they influence the way we think.
Reading Ehigie’s paper‘The Role of Global Citizens in Today’s World (2021) reinforces the importance Development Education has in helping children understand the wider world and their place in it. It shouldn’t be looked at as stand alone subject, but rather by using an integrated approach through the use of stories, discussions, geography, and SPHE. By integrating it into my teaching through big projects, stories or small discussions, I find that it gives children the chance to think about fairness, diversity, sustainability, and how their actions can make a difference. Classrooms today are a lot more multicultural than they used to be and our teaching needs to reflect that. Having a whole school approach to Development Education and sharing of resources and ideas with colleagues would help to incorporate it into the everyday teaching across the entire school. This could be facilitated through workshops, staff meetings, Croke Park hours and shared drives.
Hi Jonathan, I love your idea of having a shared drive to work collaboratively and have everyone easily able to access resources.
As part of space week, I would use the story “If I were an astronaut” by Eric Braun to introduce space week. I would show the class a video of it being read on the international space station by astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor to spark a discussion about space and rockets. I would ask the class how we would get to the space station (answer: a rocket). As a class, we would discuss what we need to build a rocket. I would then distribute materials and get the children to work in pairs to make their own rocket. These rockets would then be used to investigate the impact of force and depending on the force used to throw them impacts how far they travel. After we have explored force, we would then try and throw our rocket as far as possible. This would integrate with maths and the topic measurements. I would get the class to record how far their rocket travelled and we would compare them as a class to see which one travelled the furthest.
Hi Elaine, I loved your potions idea! The children would love that, I also love the scope for integrating it with measures in Maths.
I would choose the “Where do you live?” activity as it has a lot of scope for cross-curriculum integration e.g. Mé féin agus mo theach, developing oral language and vocabulary, role-plays. I would use the book Home by Carson Ellis as a prompt for the lesson and get the class to discuss the types of homes in the story before discussing their homes and different types of homes that people and animals live in as a pair work and whole class discussion. We would compare and contrast the different types of homes we live in. Next, I would get the children to design and make their own home using a variety of different materials providing them with a hands-on, fun activity. At the end of the lesson, I would get the class to look at their own and other’s creations. The homes could then be used for future lessons such as roleplays in Aistear.
Hi Sharon, I love your ideas and how they can be integrated across the curriculum. The class would really enjoy this lesson.