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Suzanne, thanks so much for sharing such an extensive list! I hand thought of some, but not all of these! I look forward to using some of these in the coming year : )
There are so many songs, poems and works of art that we have seen or heard about since we were very young that connect us with the night sky.
Some of the first nursery rhymes that we learned such as Twinkle Twinkle, Hey Diddle Diddle and Star Light, Star Bright have direct links to the night sky and depict the wonder and intrigue that the night sky stirs in us. There are also so many songs that were inspired by space, stars and the night sky such as Fly me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra, Rocket Man by Elton John and Star Man by David Bowie. Maya Angelou’s poem A Barve and Startling Truth, Silver by Walter de la Mare and The Moon by Emily Dickinson were all inspired by the night sky. Famous art works such as Starry Night and Starry Night over the Rhone (which captures Ursa Major) by van Gogh, The Sun by Edvard Munch, The Creation of Sun, Moon and Planets by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Dog Barking at Moon by Joan Miró and Infinity Mirror Rooms by Yayoi Kusama are all intriguing works that would be wonderful to explore with a class. Museum of the Moon by Luke Jerram would be amazing to experience also!How would you engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity?
We would start off by learning what biodiversity is, why it is important and that it is in decline due to several threats such as clearance of land, climate change and pollution (of many kinds). We will learn that we can work together to improve biodiversity in our local area – starting with our school grounds. The children will brainstorm ideas that we could do to help biodiversity such as not mowing the grass, only planting native trees and plants, adding bird boxes and allowing native wildflowers to grow in many parts of the grounds. To learn about the biodiversity in our school, we will begin by observation and conduct a Bio-Blitz to find out what plants and animals are already living in our school grounds. We will use books, keys and websites to help us identify what we find and record everything by sketching or taking photos with school iPads. I will show the children photos of a family of foxes that lived under one of the cabins on the school grounds during Covid, and this may lead the children to wonder/discuss why we didn’t observe them ourselves and lead us into a discussion about nocturnal animals. We can develop a biodiversity map and species record of the school to share with the school community. Recording what we find on the National Biodiversity Data Centre as Citizen Scientists would be a fun and practical way to develop our sense of active citizenship. I love the feature of this that we can see what other people have recorded in our area also. As we learn about biodiversity, we will discuss the effect that light pollution is having e.g. disrupting navigation, feeding etc. and what we can do to help. Doing an audit of the lighting in and around our school with respect to the direction of the lights, the colour of the bulbs, the timing of their use etc. will be very useful to help us to come up with changes that may be necessary in order to reduce the impact of light pollution on nocturnal creatures. The children will then be able to replicate the Bio-Blitz and the lighting survey at home and perhaps go on an evening nature walk with their families and record anything they observe. They could also try some stargazing and notice the impact that light pollution is having on their ability to see the stars. This may encourage families to do their small part to reduce light pollution in their own area.Thank you for sharing the idea of Chatter Pix…it is one I haven’t heard of, but can imagine the endless uses. Looking forward to trying this one out : )
Light pollution is affecting humans and animals alike, so it is vital that the children become more aware of the issue and how they can help reduce it. Starting with the video about light pollution from NSW would draw attention to this issue that the children may not have considered before. I teach in an urban area that has experienced so much development in recent years which has led to light pollution from housing, cars, buildings, streetlights, floodlights on pitches etc. I know many of the children may not have experienced dark skies before. When I visit family who live in a rural area in the West of the country, I just love to go outside to see the Milky Way and the millions of stars…just breathtaking! Sadly, when I am at home, the light pollution is much higher so the number of stars visible from home are much reduced. Other participants have suggested getting children to count the number of stars that are visible from their own homes over a number of nights and then show them images of the night sky from one of the Dark Skies Reserves to really illustrate what we are missing out on seeing because of the light pollution in our area. (Another participant suggested the Sky Jar for this also) Discussing causes of light pollution and how we might go about doing something to reduce light pollution in our own area is a real-life problem that I have no doubt the children will have many ideas about. Doing the survey of sources of light pollution around the school and encouraging the children to consider how they could help reduce the light pollution at home and in their own neighbourhoods is a great way to develop citizenship. The Losing the Dark video is also a very effective one to illustrate how things have changed in the last century especially. The Growth of Light in Ireland maps are also something I would like to share with the class to really illustrate the considerable changes to sky brightness in a relatively short time. Working together to reduce light pollution is something that we can all help with.
Seán, thanks for sharing the idea of the Star Jar…sounds really effective in illustrating the issue of light pollution to the children and one that will stay with them. Looking forward to trying this with a class soon.
I think that creating 3D models of constellations is a fantastic idea that the children will love, and is one that I would love to try out this coming year!
Using the Plough Clock
To begin we would have discussion about how we tell the time (clocks, position of the sun throughout the day), but then move the discussion on to how can we tell the time at night, especially when we don’t have a watch or phone!? Introduce the idea that our ancestors used the sky to navigate and tell the time for thousands of years…and that we too could look up and use the stars!
Use Paxi videos to demonstrate the concept of day and night and then move on to use Stellarium to find our location and demonstrate to the class the movement of the stars throughout the day and night. By watching closely and through prompting, the children will notice that the night sky seems to rotate around Polaris and so the movement and positioning of the Plough constellation can be used to tell the time at night (I like to have the Constellations Art switched on for this demonstration).
We would then create our individual Plough Clocks. We could then use the Stellarium on the whiteboard to allow the children to use their Plough Clocks before they bring them home to try in the night sky with their families. This is a great way for the children to become familiar with ‘feeling’ the rotation of the earth as you scroll through the daily timeline on Stellarium and to hopefully spark an interest in learning about the night sky and the universe around them!
You have some really great ideas, Elizabeth. Thanks for sharing. I would really like to make a sun dial in the coming year…there are so many interesting ways to engage the children and I think that using the stones to mark on the hour and combining it with the cardboard one would be really interesting.
Plan how your students could “observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day”.
This is a really lovely activity to get outside and explore what is happening in the world around them. I would bring the class out to an open, sunny spot in the yard in the morning, at midday and before going home in the afternoon to record the shadows made by the sun. I would demonstrate marking an X with chalk on the ground as our point to stand on. We could note where the sun is in relation to the yard/us (e.g. above the trees/over the roof/towards the gate) to track the movement of the sun across the sky throughout the day and then we would demonstrate how to draw around a partner’s shadow at each visit. We would record our predictions about what we think we might see the next time we come out – would there be any changes? What do the children think they might observe? It is always great to get the children to record their predictions so that we can compare them with what we observed. I would record the shadow outlines by taking photos and I would replicate the activity multiple times throughout the year to draw attention to changes observed as the seasons change. We could then compare the shadows that we found in each season.
Has climate change affected sea levels in the past 50 years? Has there been any resulting impact on our local beach?
After starting with Nose high up in the Air resource and using the PAXI video about climate change, we would use EO tools such as the TEAL tool to help us chart the changes in global and Irish temperature over time. We would then use ICT to research and locate data that would perhaps indicate a corresponding rise in sea levels. We could then watch educational videos about coastal erosion and how it works and the forces involved. We could then research and locate photos of our local beach from many years ago and compare old photos with how it looks today. The children could speak to grandparents or neighbours who remember what the beach looked like when they were younger and what they remember it was like during/after storms etc. Coastal defenses were introduced at the local seafront around the year 2000 and the images before/after would spark discussion about why they were necessary, how they actually work, where the stones came from (off the seabed off the coast and were pumped onto the shore!) and what the children think the beach/seafront area might look like today if defenses were not constructed. Comparing satellite images over time will be a stark visual of the power of the sea and the need for defenses to protect the built environment, especially in today’s Climate Crisis. We could also visit the beach on a few occasions, particularly after any storm, as the power of the waves in changing the contour of the beach would be evident and would be very interesting to observe over the year. We could then create a class project and put it on display in the school for others to learn about local changes that have happened as a result of climate change.
I really like this idea as it reminds me of when there are snow days near our school…the school is pretty much at sea level but you can instantly spot the cars of teachers who live at higher altitude as, if they make it to school, they have the couple of inches of snow on their roof and the children are tempted all day to make snowballs out of it! Great example of altitude affecting weather and climate!
Dearbhail, I liked comparing the 5 satellites that I spotted and none were the same as yours! I’m sure the students will love this activity. These apps are a phenomenal resource to show them the quantity and variety of satellites orbiting above our heads each day and the huge amount they are doing to improve our lives.
I really enjoyed doing option 1 where I tracked some satellites using the Satellite Chasers app. I really liked this one as it was free (so far at least!) and they have different types of satellite in different colours. It is very easy to use and I can see the students loving this as much as tracking flights that pass over our school!
ONEWEB-2033: this satellite is part of a constellation of 648 microsatellites that help provide world wide internet access for individual consumers and airlines. Orbit is 1200km. Launched 28/05/2023.
STARLINK-32411: low earth orbit constellation to provide broadband internet access.
LEMUR 2 Deloitte-1: Launched 15/03/2025. Altitude 593km. Low earth orbiting satellites built by Spire. They help with meteorology and ship traffic tracking.
FIRESAT0: launched 15/03/2025. This is the first FireSat Protoflight satellite to pave the way for the deployment of the FirstSat constellation which aims to transform global wildfire detection, monitoring and response.
CZ-6A DEB: launched 06/08/2024. Altitude 815km. This is classified as debris (anything over 10cm in diameter). Could be discarded launch components, fragments of degrading satellites or possibly refuse from orbital collisions.
The video clips in this module are very emotive and thought provoking. I feel that it is important that the senior classes, at least, are not sheltered from one of the most important issues facing our planet today. Seeing images of devastation and destruction in clips from HOME or from the Climate Aid 2020 video that can be directly linked to changes caused by human activity speak a thousand words. The children of today will have a future battle on their hands like no other, if steps are not taken today by each and every one of us. I can see how watching the moving and often upsetting images could be somewhat controversial, but it is the harsh reality that is being faced by our fellow humans today, sadly. With a senior class, following on from previous exercises in the Weather vs Climate resource, these videos should not be bringing new and possibly frightening information to the children for the first time. It would be equally important to show videos such as Greta Thunberg at COP25 in conjunction with learning about what governments are doing to tackle climate change (e.g. learning about Paris Agreement and reading the Irish Government Climate Action Plan) – it is very important for the children to know that there are people, like Greta Thunberg, who are trying to raise awareness so we can all do something to help tackle Climate Change. Greta’s closing lines were very inspirational and would help counteract any anxiety felt by the children: ‘Every great change in history has come from the people. We can start the change. We, the people.’ Calculating their own Carbon Footprint is a very interesting thing to do. It really is a bit of a reality check that may inspire the children to work with their families to lower their family’s carbon footprint…again, a very real and tangible action they can take to make a difference.