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The sustainable development goal I have chosen is SDG 13: Climate Action, I think it’s important to show children how climate affects our daily lives, both locally and globally. Recently, we’ve had storms, heavy flooding, and even thunder and lightning on the west coast, while the east enjoyed warm weather at the very same time. These examples are relatable for children and can help them understand that our weather is becoming less predictable because of climate change.
To encourage action at a local level, I would begin with small activities such as reducing waste in the classroom, switching off lights when not in use, and planting flowers in our school garden.
In terms of School Self-Evaluation, a climate action focus could feed into whole-school goals on sustainability. For example, we could look at promoting recycling, or encouraging active travel such as walking or cycling.
Living and teaching in Dublin, I have seen the effects of climate change more and more over the last while. The heavy rain and sudden storms have caused flooding on roads and housing estates, while at the same time we also experience unusual warm weather and even drought warnings. Just last week, parts of the west coast of Ireland had thunder and lightning storms while here in the east it was dry and sunny. These extremes would be noticeable to children, who often arrive to school talking about the crazy weather. I see this as an entry point for teaching about climate change.
In my classroom, I would explore climate change through discussion, storybooks, simple experiments, and local news reports. Three things I could do in the classroom with the students are:
Reducing energy waste in the classroom (turning off lights, unplugging chargers).
Starting a green team with recycling and litter-picking around the classroom or on yard.
Do a survey on how many children walk or drive to school and encourage the students to walk to school.
In terms of School Self-Evaluation (SSE), Development Education modules feed directly into the themes of Wellbeing, Environment, and Pupil Voice. Climate action projects provide evidence of active, engaged learning, while also encouraging cross-curricular planning (SESE, SPHE, English, and Art). Collecting pupil reflections on how they feel about climate change and their role in taking action could also become valuable qualitative data for SSE.
This was a hard read but it is so uplifting to hear that he is doing well and thriving in school and with his foster family.
From the research I’ve gathered, as there are not many refugees who have entered our school since I’ve began working there, I found a few different partnerships that work in the area. There are several services supporting refugees and people seeking protection that our school can link with such as South Dublin County Council’s Local Authority Integration Team (LAIT) and Migrant Integration Forum, South Dublin County Partnership’s and Irish Red Cross Migration Services.
Ways in which our school can contribute to supporting refugees and families in direct provision are:
– setting up a buddy system to help EAL students.
– using multilingual labels or noticeboards where possible.
– reading stories about refugees in the classroom to help others understand why people leave their homes.
-design a “know your community” poster, with local library, clubs such as GAA and other supports around the area.
– hosting culture days with food, traditional clothing and music.These link directly to our School Self-Evaluation by promoting inclusion, and showing clear outcomes in areas like respect, empathy, and diversity.
We also have our own school garden, we have plants, fruit and veg growing in the garden and it is well looked after by students and support staff.
I also noticed alot of sport stereotypes in the class this year, even during active week, the boys were disappointed that they didn’t win penalty shoot outs, because they believed they were better than the girls.
Gender stereotypes can start to affect children at a very young age. Many children already have ideas about what colours, toys, or hobbies are “for boys” or “for girls” and these often come from environmental experiences and it can have a real impact on their confidence.
This year I taught 2nd class and I have had the same pupils for a 2 year cycle. I’ve seen gender stereotypes come up in small but significant ways in my class. One example from last year was when a boy came in proudly showing his new s pink Stanley Cup. A few boys laughed and said it was a “girl’s colour.” When some of the boys laughed at the pink Stanley, I just made a casual comment in , reminding the class that pink is not a “boys’ colour” or a “girls’ colour” that anybody can like it, and what matters is choosing things that make you happy.
During this year the same child sometimes brings in microphones and dolls for Golden Time, and again, questions are asked by others as if those are “for boys”. It’s times like these that show us how early children pick up ideas about what boys and girls “should” like, and how it can affect their confidence in expressing themselves.
I think as teachers knowing about Development Education ideas can really help challenge this thinking. Using stories and classroom discussions that celebrate diversity of interests, and role-play where children can swap perspectives, it also encourages respect and empathy for differences.
I haven’t heard of the Croi na Scoile program before, but having done a bit of research on it, it seems like a great idea.
After reading The Role of Global Citizens in Today’s World (Ehigie, 2021), I can see how important Development Education is in schools and to ensure it is meaningful in the classroom. This paper highlights the critical role of global citizens in fostering empathy, sustainability, and justice in a rapidly changing world. Ways in which I could link Development Education into a lesson is possibly during Geography in relation to climate change and how it affects people differently around the world, or with literacy using stories that show different cultures and perspectives. These kinds of lessons help children think critically, see things from other viewpoints, and realise that their actions matter.
In my own teaching, I’d like to use talk and discussions and groupwork to get children engaged with global issues. I’d also encourage other teachers to share resources and plan activities together so it becomes part of the whole school culture. Linking Development Education into SSE makes sense too, as it supports pupil voice, wellbeing, and inclusion while encouraging empathy and responsibility.
I am choosing the paper rocket activity set. This lesson will be suitable to use during space week. This lesson will focus on rockets and exploring space. We will begin with a discussion about rockets such as what they are, how they’re used in space exploration, and the science behind how they’re launched. I will consider using a KWL chart to discuss these questions with the students. We will also watch a short video about how rockets break through Earth’s atmosphere.
I will then organise the children to work in small groups, the will folded paper rockets, adding fins and a nose cone. Once the rockets are ready, we will use straws to launch them, experimenting with different angles and force to see how far they could fly. This is a simple activity and does not require many resources.
I really liked the activity set for Where Do You Live? and it’s suitable to all the junior classrooms. I will be trying it out with my second class this year.
I would start by discussing and exploring different types of homes such as apartments/Flats, Semi-Detached, Detached, Cottage/bungalows and caravans or mobile homes. The students would then describe what their home looks like, sharing details about its shape, colour, and size.
Following the discussion, students would be given clay/playdough, or air dough (whatever is readily available to the school) to build a model of their own house. As a final step, we would bring all the models together to create a village of houses, which would be proudly displayed in the classroom.
I would begin the lesson by asking the children if they have ever seen the stars in the sky. I would ask some of the children to try and explain what stars are. I would then start with a KWL to see what they know about stars relating it back to content we’ve learned about light.
I would use this activity for a maths lesson and begin by discussion the shapes of stars. After this I would pair the students together and each pair would be given a set of star-shaped dot patterns, and they’d have to connect the dots to form their own constellations. Once the constellations are drawn, each pair would get to name their creation and share the reason behind their design with the class.
