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Hi Orla.
How lucky are you to have a library in your school! I’m sure your pupils enjoy the experience, especially with sky lights and a telescope in situ. Unfortunately we don’t have a library but I do have a large area outside my classroom that is currently used as a sensory area. I wonder how expensive telescopes are and if it would be possible for our school to purchase on e for this area. It would work really well I think. You could display some information about the constellations or planes on laminated cards and display them in the area.
Create your own dark sky in the classroom.
I choose this assignment because I think my 6th class pupils would really enjoy this project. We would begin by discussing dark sky places. I visited Ayers Rock a few years ago and had the privilege of looking at the stars from that place. It was truly amazing. I would show the pupils images of dark sky places in Ireland and abroad as a trigger to get them thinking about the night sky. We would explore how we would go about creating our own night sky in the classroom.
I would put the pupils into groups and each group would be responsible for researching and creating displays for our classroom night sky. Groups could consist of Nocturnal animals in this area and how they are affected by light pollution, I would have an interactive area where one group would use the Stellarium app to showotherpupils how to find tne Northstar, another group would create visuals on the major constellations explaining how Orion and Casseopia gotthenames. These visuals could be displayed on the ceiling or even under tables. Another group would be responsible for creating a brochure for the project, outlining what to look for when you visit each group or station. I would then choose pupils to go to the younger classes and show them the brochure and invite them to our class to visit our night sky.
I think this project would suit all the pupils in the class as it has links to art, oral language, science etc and the whole class would enjoy this project!
Hi Helen.
I agree that doing a survey of audit around the school to identify native species is a good idea. The issue as I see it is in identifying the native trees and flowers. I find the tree council website excellent for help with this. Bird watch Ireland is another great resource in learning about native birds. The pupils could look up these website in group, with each group responsible for learning to recognise a specific tree or bird. I think the pupils would enjoy learning about this!
Engaging learners to explore biodiversity in our local area.
I would begin this topic by eliciting from the pupils what they know about biodiversity. I love the quote from this module that biodiversity is the variety of life on earth. This allow plenty of scope for cross curricular links and integration as we explore other habitat in Ireland, such as boglands and forests. The biodiversity booklet and colouring book by Juanita browne is an excellent resource to take the classroom outside and explore the habitat in the school environment. We are situated in an urban setting and so don’t have large green areas but we do have a few trees, hedge grows and flower beds. We would also use the posters and magnifying glasses to look at the insects present in these areas. I think the pupils would enjoy learning about biodiversity happening under their very feet!
There were lots of excellent videos on bats and moths in this module. I know I was afraid for years that bats could get caught in my hair so it’s a relief to know this doesn’t happen! And learning about echolocation is very interesting. There were great ideas in how to teach the pupils about echolocation, including the at and Moths game.
I think the pupils would also enjoy learning about how animals have adapted to see at night, looking at the ESERo activity that shows how noctural animals have bigger eyes was very interesting.Finally,the EannaNi Lamhna resurces were excellent and i would definitely use tbem next year. We are fortunate to live near an area of graet natural biodiversity, tbe Mangala in Douglas and our local tidy townsoften do workshops for schools there. I will contact them insepeptember to enquire about possible field trips. Their facilitators have huge expertise and will beable to explore theimpacts of light pollution on local biodiversity withtbe pupils.
Hi Aoife, I like your idea of asking the pupils to consider the lighting they use at home. It might encourage them to turn off lights that are not in use and be more mindful of turning on lights and lamps in the first place! I’m sure parents would appreciate this also, especially coming into the darker evenings!! And I agree that we have to be careful about judging families and being overly critical of practice that families have in their own homes.
I think it is really important to teach the children about light pollution. I doubt they are even are of such a thing and the many impacts of light pollution. I would begin by showing the pupils some images of the night sky, including pictures of the Milky Way from the Kerry night reserve website and the mayo dark sky park website. We would discuss why we cannot see this from our urban setting and would introduce the term light pollution to the class. What do they think this means? We would discuss factors that contribute to light pollution. At this point, I would show them the video from Loch Ness productions called Losing the Dark. I thought this was a really excellent video on the impact of light pollution. Moving on from this, we would look at ways that we can reduce light pollution. The Light Pollution resource pack from space week had some excellent ideas for investigations on how to create shields that I think would work really well in class. Our school is in an urban setting and so there are opportunities for the pupils to do an audit of the artificial lighting in there area. They could go for a walk around the neighborhood, accompanied by an adult of course, and look at examples of lighting that creates light pollution and think about ways this could be reduced. Finally, we could integrate this topic with other strands in science and look at how insects and nocturnal animals are impacted by light pollution.
Hi Emma, I thought the ESERO activity 34 was really good as welland I definitely plan on using itnext year. And I agree that if the stellarium app can be downloaded on a parents phone or laptop it would be even more useful. Some parents or grandparents might have huge interest in the night sky and may even be a useful resource to be classroom. It can be very effective to bring in outside expertise who are knowledgeable and passionate about their subject!
Stellarium app.
I found the digital resources mentioned in this module to be very useful. I would use the Paxi videos as a trigger. I thought there was lots of information in these videos that was explained in a way that is easy to understand. These videos are highly visual as well. The whole concept of space and understanding the night sky can be challenging so the more visuals the better! I would begin this unit of work by looking at pictures of the constellations. Looking at Cassiopeia and Orion and learning the story behind how the constellations got their names is very interesting and I think the pupils would enjoy learning about this. I would then use the Curious Minds activity on how to create your own plough constellation. This could even be given as a project to complete at home with the help of parents or siblings. We would then look at the stellarium app on the pupils tablets and use the plough to find Polaris, the north star. It was suggested in this module that the pupils could take a selfie with the north star in the background. I love this idea and the pupils could email it to me but we would need to do a lot of practice using the app before the pupils could do this. Again, the help of parents or an adult at home would be required. I also liked the Solar system explores website. Th thumbnails at the side make it very easy to click on each planet or moon and see where they are in space in relation to the solar system. Again, very visual and engaging for the pupils.
I thought this activity was a lovely activity, and very suitable for all classes. It provides an opportunity to take the childrens learning outside in a very meaningful way. It also encourages the pupils to look around them and take note of changes they might observe in the sky. Very often we go through our day, never noticing changes in the natural environment. This activity encourages us all to be more clued into the world around us, and it also creates a very visualand direct link between what is happening up in the sky and what is happening on planet earth.
I think the Planetary Picnic activity from the Ogden Trust would be a great activity to do with my 6th class. I would do the activity during Space Week, as part of a wider theme on The Solar System. I would put the class into groups and each group would research one of the planets, creating a fact file and drawing of each planet. We would also look at gravity and how the force of gravity keeps the planets in orbit around the sun. The YouTube video of planet earth’s sunrise as seen from the moon could be used as a springboard for engagement and discussion. We would also look at the YouTube clip of the astronaut strolling on the moon. We would measure how high we can jump and compare that to how the astronaut jumps on the moon. This could lead to a discussion on weight and mass, and show the pupils that objects can have different weight on different planets. We would then use rice and sand to create the different weight a box of 200g crisps would have in each of the planets. The group would finish by looking at image of their planet in space and create a suitable cover for their box if crisps that represents the planet they have been researching. There are lots of opportunities in this lesson for linking curricular objectives with maths, oral language and art.
