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Aoife – I love the idea of including solar system exploration. You could tell the children that they have to decide which space mission is going to be built and launched– which planet will it go to? what will it try to find out?
This happens every few years in all the major space agencies – there are always more proposals than there is money – so different mission ideas are developed, but only one or two actually get built.
Aoife – there is also the chance to throw in a little bit of science fiction ideas — since space is so vast, how did the spacecraft get to Earth? (I expect at least one child will tell you it was through a worm-hole!)
John – do you think that the children would reply — “we like doing experiments?”
I like the Milo and Marvin as a trigger – but I would hope that children would wonder and question and try out variations on their activities, rather than just being content with the activity as designed and explained.
so for the alka seltzer rocket — it’s a start – and children should take it further.
Denise – what a great collection of ideas for your class, I’m with Roisin on agreeing how much children would enjoy!
Denise – do you have a link to the poem: Planet Roll Call?
Have you a particular set of planet images you like? I acquired a set of planet lithographs a few years ago and have used them over and over again, as well as this simple poster from ESA:
Joey – how much variety do you have between the balloons? They could be different sizes, different shapes, different colours – and could be put in different places in the classroom, or handled differently … This could lead to a great discussion about which factor is the most important – and plenty of opportunity for further explorations.
Great combination of ideas — I like the idea of the astronauts encountering the aliens. I’m in Canada right now and keep seeing this ad on the television: https://youtu.be/m0rNcjhFeQA
I wonder if your children will say “I’d like to come home now!”
John, a lot of pedagogy has been done on the idea of real world examples in teaching – and I agree with you that they are powerful ways to engage children. I found this video from ESA – is this the one you found?
John – did you try to model axial tilt? or have the web-cam “eyes” in different positions on the child — ie an eye from the Equator sees differently than an eye at the pole.
John – that’s a really nice was to trigger engagement – and beliefs vs “knowing” is a nice distinction.
John – the role play is a bit of fun – it’s nice to have a script to get it started. Do you have a fixed globe? and have you seen the Earth Ball globes? The Universe in a Box booklet is HUGE – and just full of activities for 4 to 8 year olds – you might let me know over the year which parts of it were most use to you.
Hi John, to avoid getting the extra formatting, see the first post in this thread.
Can you give external access to your mind map? Right now it is giving “Diagram not found!”
When discussing density with children, please keep in mind that density doesn’t appear in the primary curriculum – so use language like: light for its size, heavy for its size. Floating/sinking can get complicated, so you might want to add in the design a boat language and the design a diver language from primary science.
Joey – would you explore the appearance of the Moon in terms of the light shining on it and what we are able to see? If you have high resolution images of the Moon from a telescope, then the shadows of lunar features can be seen, and that can lead to an exploration of how the sunlight lights up the Moon – giving the shadows that cause the phases.
The surface of the Moon’s lunar dust is also quite nasty for humans – see this article.
Hi Denise – to get rid of the additional formatting see the first post in this thread.
I like how you have planned an engage section with interesting resources that will get the ideas going. The starter question for the investigation should be quite simple, and answerable from the activity the children carry out – in this case a design and make of the lunar surface might ask “which materials will be best to make a moon model?” and then the children might plan (which replaces predict) the best materials and then make (replaces the next section of the framework).
