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Margaret,
I like the idea of the paired shadow work – could you ask the taller children if they could fit into the shadow of the infant? Since the shadows do move pretty quickly, having help to draw their shadow is a great idea.
Deirdre,
I’m not familiar with Five little Aliens.
I found these words : https://kcls.org/content/five-little-aliens/
Five Little Aliens Flying Out in Space
the first one said, let’s have a race.
The second one said, watch me go
The third one said, that’s so slow
The fourth one said, my ship’s fast
The fifth one said, I’m always last.There is also Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer here:
Deirdre,
note the nice discussion about shadows from the Sun booklet from Dr Maeve Liston where she argues that shadows should not be coloured in, since they are the absence of light.
We have used multiple lights to make ‘shadows’ that are the absence of one colour of light – which is a great “take the next step”
Hi Laura,
another teacher shared this book and her class’ Leprechaun traps just a few days ago. I’ll have to check out the book,
Design and Make that uses the children’s understanding is a great way to use the inquiry process. The investigation step looks slightly different, instead of
- Starter Question
- Predicting
- Conducting the Investigation
- Sharing: Interpreting the data / results
You have
- Explore
- Plan
- Make
- Evaluate
In both formats the children should refer to what they know and what they find out from the investigation/design as they incorporate their new understanding into their science modelling of the world.
Robyn,
with inquiry in this course we specifically refer to the Curious Minds ESERO Framework for Inquiry. We tend not to refer to hypotheses, which they will meet in second level school, but to making predictions based on their scientific understanding.
They may well use “books, videos, and interactive simulations to help them explore the topic further” to help them find out answers to their questions, particularly their own (or teacher guided) “starter question.”
So, if you planned to use “What would it be like to live on Mars?” as the prompt, the children may then wonder and explore their thinking as they share questions/ find out facts to frame a starter question.
This might be around: Is there water on Mars? – and they might use the Mars activity set at spaceweek.ie to explore how water channels are formed and if Mars images have those types of shapes.
The more general activities you have described might form part of the “take the next step” as they might consider how Mars is like/unlike other planets,. or consider how the distance from the Sun to Mars is greater than the distance of Earth from the Sun and how that affects Mars – it is colder.
Ciara,
do you have enough computers for the children, or would you be setting this up as a station that the children can visit? The nice thing about stellarium app is that you don’t need the internet to use it, so you can install it on a device and freely let the children use it.
We had a set of 10 laptops at BCO that we used to use with Stellarium – so I have seen a lot of children get quite lost in the sky and in time. This is when you need to know the short cut of ‘Press number 8 to return to now.’
Maeve,
from experience, get decent vinegar (no discount brands) for this to work. Film canisters are very hard to find now, so try fizzy vitamin tablet tubes, or small plastic bottles and corks.
We created a short series of videos a while ago (I can’t believe 10 years!) with my former colleague Ria and Dr Niamh Shaw (as Eunice). This one demonstrates the baking powder and vinegar reaction.
Josie,
I’m not completely clear on the shoebox constellations. I found this example of making one with holes punched to let light through, but I’m not clear on the string and tin foil with the shoe box.
Fionnuala,
we created a nice short activity on living in space and what would you take. You can find it at Mission to the Moon on spaceweek.ie.
I’m glad you name checked my fellow Canadian Chris Hadfield – I’m a big fan!
Fionnuala,
Stellarium (the main app) has a function whereby you can turn off the ground to see all the stars that surround the Earth – not just the ones above the local horizon. That would be useful for spotting Orion, since some of the time it is below the horizon, and in May/June it is behind the Sun altogether.
On stellarium web, look for the white shape of two trees at the bottom, and click it to turn off the ground.
Maeve,
You can bring inquiry into this activity by recording the children’s predictions about the conditions on other planets based on their understanding. They might think that planets that are close to their Sun are hotter than planets that are further away. They could then verify this – a simple and quick inquiry process adapted from the Framework for Inquiry.
Flying Tiger currently have a cute set of alien pencils and bookmarkers that might be nice items to have in the classroom when you take your Alien Worlds tour.
You could also share these exoplanet travel posters from NASA, which have guided tours (for example: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/exoplanet-travel-bureau/hd-40307g-guided-tour/) a commentary on the art and also colouring pages that let the children express their own views on how the planet might look.
Hi Susanne,
you have the key point about the inquiry framework starting from the children’s interest – tractors vs trucks. My children lived on a train line when they were very young – so everything for them was about trains!
Maeve,
I like how you plan to look at
how the Sun lights up different parts of the Moon.
since even though Phases of the Moon isn’t part of the Ireland’s primary curriculum (but is in second level), it can be treated as an example of light and shadows.
It is also a subject of many misconceptions: https://ed.ted.com/best_of_web/XA7WNT0o
Cillian,
check your units – Vega isn’t that far away! it is only 25 light years.
Vega is one of my favourite stars and is so easy to see in the sky in the Summer – just look straight up when it first gets dark.
It is great to compare it to Deneb, which appears a little bit dimmer, but is 1400 light years away. This makes you think how bright it must be, if it is so much further away, yet looks only slightly dimmer.
Thanks for sharing this outline Siobhan.
I am not particularly familiar with Lámh, so thanks for sharing the video link.
I fairly recently learnt about aphantasia and wonder just how common it is, this article suggests ~4% of the population experiences it. My son (age21+) fullly completed school before he realised he has it!
