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The video documentary ‘Home’ is a very powerful movie with some stunning aerial footage of the Earth. It demonstrates the devastating impact of human activities on our planet. It was an eye-opening watch. The other video clips introduced in this module, particularly Greta Thunberg’s TED talk really hit home about the urgency for change. My class of 2nd class may be a little bit too young to show some of the footage to them so I would introduce these facts to them myself in an age appropriate way for them. I would begin by showing them pictures of the beautiful natural features of the Earth and talking about how it is our home and how we need to look after it. I would then focus more on the things that we can do to look after it rather than the consequences of what could happen, just because of their age. I think that this could be covered in 3rd class and upwards.
Activity 3- Climate Reporters provides a very rich learning experience for learners. Personally, I feel that this particular activity would be more suitable to the older classes in primary school. As I will be teaching 2nd class this year, I would have to adapt it to make it suitable for my students. I would talk about the fact that the climate has been changing all the time but now it is changing faster than ever. I would explain how scientists can use tools to predict what the climate will be like in years to come. I would model the tool for predicting future temperatures, rather than ask the children to explore it as I feel it would be too complicated for this age group. We would have a class discussion about how climate change is happening rapidly. We may use some of the information from this activity to design posters to place around the school.
I found the videos and resources explained in this module to be extremely useful and I have them downloaded and saved to use with my class this year. In particular, both resources mentioned above will be extremely useful to me in my classroom this coming year. I like that the ‘Nose Up in the Air’ resource explores old weather proverbs. It provides a nice opportunity for integration with the History curriculum. Both resources involve the children going out and taking measurements which is great as hands-on learning is so beneficial. I would love to set up a weather station in the school and involve some other classes. Our school has plenty of space for this. Each class could take turns taking measurements and collecting data. Each class could report their findings over the intercom each month. This would be a great way to get the whole school involved and learning in a collaborative way.