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If your theme is the Space Station – would you make your own junk model of the ISS?
There are also a couple of ESA videos about Mars, with Paxi as our guide.
and
which also discusses, how do we know that something is alive?
Angela – comparing the two rockets is great — and there are plenty of inquiries that the children could carry out with each rocket alone.
The foam rocket lends itself to — will it go further if I stretch the rubber band more? will it go further if I aim it straight up, or horizontally? will it go where I aim it if it has no fins? etc…
Claire – seems like you have something for everyone! I hope your colleagues think this is a good plan and I look forward to seeing your school registered with http://www.spaceweek.ie/add/.
Darragh — the question about how far away the stars are is really interesting- and the ways in which we have worked out the distance to stars is pretty complicated.
You can try these three-D images of stars from GAIA, I managed to get them to look 3-D from my computer screen.
Síle, I agree with you about spreading this topic out over the course of a week, and connecting their imaginations with their science understanding is a great way to explore this topic.
Síle – this is a simple activity, but it is so effective. I was watching my shadow this morning – it was extremely long at sunrise, and I was thinking that in winter, with the later sunrise, this would be very effective to explore with children during school hours.
John – what activity on eclipses would you carry out? There is an ESERO activity for older classes that has the children model the Earth-Sun-Moon system. Just watch out for the small error on the names of the phases of the Moon (and bear in mind, phases of the Moon are not required in primary).
John – for a science inquiry activity for junior classes, the emphasis is very much on the children posing a question, predicting what they think the answer is, based on their own science understanding and then verifying that answer with a research or practical activity.
This discussion could form the exploration part of an inquiry – and then the children might explore how water being a liquid depends on the temperature at that place.
Miriam – sounds lovely, and the children might discuss how you could combine items to stay extra warm, and might consider extra requirements for something being waterproof as well as warm.
The Pass the Parcel activity can be a nice warm-up to remind them of the language around materials, although you might want to make up 3 or 4 parcels if you have a large class.
Pass the parcel can be a great introduction to activities that use fabric – and can serve to remind the children of the vocabulary around materials. I have a set of fabric pieces that I keep on hand and insert additional bits between the layers from an inexpensive pinata kit I got from Tesco.
Alexandra – would you give them enough time to try out a second or third go? If you use plastic egg cartons (harder to find now, but still available if you buy the budget eggs in packs of 20!) – they have an easy set of containers and can try out more than one mix.
They could be working on meaures of capacity – particularly if you have a range of spoons for them to use to add the vinegar.
Emily – you can also use parts of the ESA Education resource on Moon Shelter, it has great images of shelters in different parts of the world.
Claire – this sounds like a great design and make skills activity, with the bonus of the science content from materials:
Properties and characteristics of materials
— begin to explore how different materials may be used in the construction of homes suited to their environments
Aisling – this topic can easily be adapted to support design and make skills — in which case the emphasis is on the task of creating a 3-D object – the Martian, and can have science content in there as the children might evaluate how well their Martian would survive on the cold, dry Martian surface.