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This is a great question as it really gets you to stop and think.
Art wise a starry night by van gogh springs to mind.
In the past few months I have also seen ones depicting the northern lights which are fascinating.Music wise twinkle, twinkle little star is so well known. As is hey diddle diddle in which The cow jumps over the moon.
With an older class you could do cold plays a sky full of stars.
Thin Lizzy dancing in the moon light.
Ah moon and star by Emily Dickinson
Hopkins the starlight Night is a beautiful poem that describes the skiesAlot of great examples there that can be used from infants to the higher end of primary school. They would be great to tie in with oral language and art etc. Songs are such a great way to engage children
How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and
the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity.I would begin by asking the children their understanding of the term biodiversity. Next I would get the children to survey the school grounds. We are an urban school with limited grounds around. We do have a small school garden and some trees around the staff car park.
next i would ask the children to identify what causes light pollution and get them to come up with ways that we can help limit our footprint in this. I was fasinated to read about the impact of light pollution on birds in this section. I would never had considered that their waking hours are impacted and that this can impact their health and wellbeing. We have also planted wild flowers in the past in the school grounds but I don’t think we considered if they were native species to Ireland.
Your school grounds sound like they so much to offer in terms of biodiversity. I love the idea of using the cameras. It really allows the children to see what appears when the noise of the day has gone.
I found this to be a very engaging topic and it definetly made me pause and consider light pollution in my own locality. I live in a small village area in the outskirts of Dublin. It has a number of housing estates all emiting light, street lights and a number of businesses that leave lights on over night. In the immediate vacinity there is a dual carriageway and motor way all with street lighting and huge volumes of cars emmiting light.
I think of late people did consider ligght pollution when considering where to get the best views of the northern lights when they were visible across Ireland.
The best way to engage a class would be by discussion and allow them to identify pollutants. They in turn could create an awareness campaign in school.Hi Una, this is definitely an important campaign and one that I did not know about prior to doing this course. I like your ideas on engaging the children as our bad habits have and will continue to impact their futures.
I would begin by having a class discussion about the moon in order to establish existing knowlege. I would put the children into groups to find out some facts about the moon using an online search. I would hope we would establish that the moon itself does not light up but that it in fact reflects the light of the sun. We would discuss lunar vs solar eclipse. We would discuss the fact that the moon orbits the earth and that the reflection changes as a result. We would discuss when the moon is at its most visible. I really liked the moon observation log template that was presented during the slide show. With this we would record the date, time and shape of the moon.
As a class we would use timeanddate.com/moon/phases/ to check the moons phase. The Stellarium app would also be good to observe the moons appearance. Its an area that would be very engaing to some children as some are fasinated by all aspects of space.Hi Patrick
I think getting the children to make models of the moon is a great idea. I also like that its an area that you would return to in December and this allows the children to identify and discuss the changes that they have observed.
Plan how your students could “observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day”
In order to complete this task I would discuss with the class that direct sunlight moves to where it hits throughout the day. I would discuss shadows etc.
Next I would ask the children the position of the sun at sunrise and sunset.
In order to observe and record this I would ask children to use weather apps (If summer sun rise and sun set might be too early/late for the children to observe)
If in wintertime I would ask children to keep a record of where the sun is in the morning – their front/ back garden etc and do this again at sunset. During the day in school we could monitor the movements of the sun and keep a written record.
Hi Patrick,
This sounds like a great idea. I feel it’s an activity the children would really enjoy participating in. Again like most good activities seeing this in action makes it real for the children and it will help them recall it in future. It will also encourage questions from them.
This sounds like such a lovely lesson. I like the fact it is active and therefore would engage the children. Even children as young as Junior infants need to be active in their own learning and one of the key aspects of science is investigations!
Senior infants sun and shadows
I would begin this activity by reading the book ‘The Day I met my Shadow’. This would introduce the children to the language and concept of a shadow and the fact that it changes size etc and is made on the ground on a sunny day.
We would go outside (on a sunny day) and the children would do different actions and movements while looking at their shadows.
I would place the children in pairs and chalk draw around each others shadows. The children would have the opportunity to look at each others shadows and say if their shadow was the same or different.
When we return to the classroom we would discuss what they did and the fact that indoors a torch could be used and that this is how people make shadow puppets.
I would play this shadow puppets song and let the children play freely for a few minutes making shadow puppets: https://youtu.be/dmqdzXZoqCI
My lesson is for a Junior Infant class
To begin I would read the story ‘Can’t you sleep Little Bear’
Having read the book I would ask the children why little bear couldn’t sleep? (the dark). What did Big Bear do to help? (He got a teeny lantern, a bigger one, a bigger one again)
I would ask the children to help me to come up with a list of things that give us light (the sun, stars, moon, lights, lamps, candles torches, phones, etc). We would discuss why light is so useful and what the different ones do.
As a fun activity in the end I would allow the children to go outside in the sun to look at the impact of the sun shining on us during the day and look at shadows.
That sounds like a great idea. I love the fact that you used an area you knew the class were interested in to do this. It sounds like the class really enjoyed it as well. A book that would tie in lovely for this would be Tom Crean’s rabbit. It would be another to discuss transport and getting to these far away places as explorers.