[Frances McCarthy]

Sean – would you have them carry this out at home after school? It gets dark by 5pm in the winter, so lots of time for them to look before bedtime.

[Frances McCarthy]

Michelle,

I visited a school last year that used Space as a theme for Aistear – the teacher had checklists for launch, a space craft console, a large space craft on the wall… it was really inspiring. Do you have a themed corner too?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Frances McCarthy.

[Frances McCarthy]

Great stuff – something for everyone there, and very doable in the classroom.

Every year Space Week is 4-10 October, this year that falls on a Friday to the following Thursday, but Space Week can easily be Mon-Friday in your own school.

Don’t forget to register this as an event on spaceweek.ie.

[Frances McCarthy]

What a great set of activities for Space Week – please make sure your register your class this year!

If you want more

Astronaut Training: Set up an obstacle course. Pretend students are astronauts navigating through space stations.

check out MissionX (scroll down the front page to find the physical activity section if you google the name).

[Frances McCarthy]

Sean,

this is a very doable plan, particularly if a fizzy vitamin tablet tube makes the core of the spacecraft that is then decorated to look more spacecrafty.

if you wanted to design the interior of the spacecraft, then use this resource (Humans in Space from spaceweek.ie) instead.

[Frances McCarthy]

Yvonne – there are some images of shelters in the ESA resource “Moon Shelter” which could be useful in this activity – they come from very different parts of the world, including the Antarctic shelters that scientists use.

 

[Frances McCarthy]

I hadn’t heard that description of the new maths curriculum – but you are so right!

I’m also interested to see how moving Geography and Science apart a bit will work, since I think there are so many similar skills between Geography and Science (and of course, Earth and Space is a topic in SESE Geography!).

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Frances McCarthy.

[Frances McCarthy]

Hi Saoirse,

would you use the actual experiments that Marvin and Milo try out? or would you be asking children to pretend to be Marvin and Milo (a cat and a dog) in versions of activities that they are already familiar with?

Is there a particular Marvin and Milo that you think they would enjoy (out of the 100+ available)?

[Frances McCarthy]

Laura,

would these space craft be functional models or more decorative?

I’m not sure how they will fly – so is this

“which spacecraft would travel the furthest/fastest etc.. “

more of a thought activity or a practical test?

See for example: Design the Space Station, which is pure junk art, rather than Design and Make. vs make a model effector for the ISS which is a working model that can complete a task. (and in Irish)

[Frances McCarthy]

Hi Roisin,

welcome to this course and the forum.

I love the idea of pitching this as a camping trip! Is this the book? and this an extra pack of bits? and a how to draw Herman?

A prompt with a “cold, soaking wet and bored” character is so much fun to promote thinking about being waterproof.

[Frances McCarthy]

I haven’t used the ESA kids App  – is it just for phones?

I’ve made a lot of paper rockets, but find that they need fine motor skills, so don’t tend to use them with anyone younger than 3rd class. For younger children Rocket Mice is my go to.

The ESA ISS Education Kit has an outline for paper rockets on page 57.

 

[Frances McCarthy]

Laura,

from my experience with second level students please take care in distinguishing what a seed needs to germinate vs what a plant needs to grow.

These get muddled all the time (I used to mark Junior Cert papers!) so it is worth separating out the ideas and really letting the children explore germination first (since it does not need light)  and then plant growth.

[Frances McCarthy]

Hi Colette,

When we bring inquiry into the classroom we are aiming to increase the children’s science content understanding through acting as scientists by investigation activities. Given the Design and Make skills in the Irish curriculum, the “Investigate” tier of the Framework for Inquiry can be modified to be Explore>Plan>Make>Evaluate. You can see examples of this design and make version on spaceweek.ie – for example Humans in Space.

Researching a planet’s characteristic is something that older children might do independently (it’s often set as an activity in second level schools), but for Junior Classes the teacher would have to provide a range of books or videos to help the children.

This ESA resource could be used to support children in designing a Mars mission – but note that it is designed for ages 8 – 12.

 

[Frances McCarthy]

Thanks Sinead – I hadn’t seen that before. Bookmarked!

[Frances McCarthy]

Sean,

with a 2nd class it could be interesting to point out the film depiction of aliens and how in older films the aliens look very human in shape (1 head, 2 arms, 2 legs) because they were humans in suits.

Animated films don’t have that constraint, so the aliens in toy story look very different.

[Author]

Posts