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Consider how many Songs / Poems /Art can you think of to connect us with the Night Sky? For example: Look up President Michael D Higgins’ “Stardust”
Music
A Sky Full of Stars Coldplay
Midnight Sky Miley CyrusPoems
We Grow Accustomed to the Dark Emily Dickinson
The Starlight Night Hopkins
A Night Piece WordsworthArt
Starry NightThere are many songs, poems and art that come to mind when I think of the dark night and its’ inspiration. Those are some I could think of offhand but a quick Google search produces lots of inspiration. I think this could easily be incorporated into a lesson for a class of senior level. I would provide a number of pre researched websites for them to explore. I think the art, poems or songs would serve as great inspiration for an art project. There are some fantastic samples of art. Also the poetry could provide inspiration for creation of poetry through creative writing lessons. There are such wonderful ideas for integrated learning across the curriculum. I enjoyed reading the forum again for ideas and inspiration.
Lovely ideas here. I also think it’s time in our school to arrange a visitor. There’s nothing quite like hearing it from someone with great knowledge and expertise in the area.
How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and
the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversityThere are a number of ways to explore biodiversity in the local area. I got inspiration from the course and the You Tube videos alongside things we are already doing in school and indeed observing the local environment I live in.
I love the idea of a bug hotel. This is something really easy to ‘construct’ and the children can observe and record the bug life that resides there using keys etc to identify the mini beasts.
I love the wildflowers idea and allowing a no mow zone. This is so important for our bees. We had a visitor before also that recommended the type of wildlife we needed to have to attract caterpillars and in turn butterflies. This is something we could revisit.
I think observation of nocturnal animals would be interesting to explore and create awareness. Perhaps the erection of a night camera in the garden to observe wildlife and then in turn we could take steps to reduce light pollution.
The children could then conduct a survey of the light fixtures and we could create a plan for securing our night light systems to encourage and promote wildlife in our school.
This was a really interesting module with lots of insights. I enjoyed reading through the forum posts and will implement some of the ideas.
Light Pollution Assignment
This was a really interesting module.
I live and work in the suburbs of Dublin. Therefore we are subjected to light pollution at night. I would use the light pollution map to open up discussion on this.
This is something we could discuss using this document below to explore further.
https://www.darksky.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LIGHT-POLLUTION-TOOLKIT-2018.pdfI would show images comparing black skies with urban skies. As suggested I would use Stellarium to explore the night sky.
We would also discuss how we could reduce light pollution in our neighbourhood and design new lamp shades etc. using this for inspiration https://darksky.org/resources/guides-and-how-tos/lighting-principles/
There have been some excellent ideas in the forum and it certainly has opened my eyes to light pollution in my own suburban area. It reminds me of how visible the Northern Lights were back in May from some parts of the country – my home area in rural Ireland in particular compared to where I now live in Dublin suburbs.
There is lots of scope for further learning and investigation here.
Lovely ideas here. I love the idea of creating the light map using colours to represent denser areas of light pollution.
Observations of the moon.
Firstly, I would introduce the topic using the Paxi moon video.
This below pdf is excellent and I would implement it to support the learning.
https://esero.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/62_Lunar-eclipse-and-phases-of-the-Moon.pdfI would use the activity sheets outlined in this document for study and experimentation of moon positions and exploration of the phases of the moon.
We would use timeanddate.com to pinpoint timings of the moon. Early September offers opportunities for morning visibility which can be revisited in mid December for a full moon allowing for revisiting and consolidation of learning. There are further opportunities in 2025.
I also like the recording activity from here https://www.mayodarkskypark.ie/discover/the-moon/ (Moon recording activity) and I think this would be a nice way to document the appearance of the moon when checking each morning.
There were great ideas in the videos and resources on the course that I have pinned for use.
Moon observations
I found this section excellent with very detailed and ready made lessons to go. I would certainly use the ESERO document to guide the lesson. I love the grouped experiment exploring the phases of the moon with the torch (the sun) and I would use this to guide the lesson. The activity sheets would also be very useful and photographs that accompany it. I would differentiate as needed. I think the video of the moon and phases would be a great starting point to the lesson and focus of inquiry also. I would use the moon observations recording sheet to document learning in the outdoors. Time and date.com would influence when we would record. September for the quarter moon through to December full moon would be a great starting point and revisit for consolidation of learning and further observation. There are many extension activities possible exploring light for example and art ideas also. It would be a very nice unit of work with lovely resources. I have pinned these resources and saved links for future use.
Great ideas to get the children researching the moon times themselves. Definitely something that an older class would be able for. This is something my fifth would certainly have done with ICT skills for retrieving information. I would give a more scaffolded approach with my thirds next year.
Plan how your students could “observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day.
https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Sun-and-Shadows-Toolkit.pdf
Having read through this I think there are excellent ideas for introducing the sundial to the class. I would use ideas from this document alongside learning from the course itself and indeed the forum. There have been excellent ideas so far.
I would engage the children and set the focus by visiting the real sundial we have in our garden. We would discuss shadows, time etc. linking with maths, geography and history of the sundial. This would instigate a research project before engaging in the make and do element of the lesson. Once the background had been established we would engage in shadow work ideas outlined in the document using the chalk on the pavement. The children would monitor their shadows and different times throughout the day. The children would then create their sundials in pairs. Again there are ideas in the pdf for this or in the course video. I would use both for inspiration. The children would record their insights. Feedback and discussion would follow. I think a nice extension activity would be doing this at different seasons and times of the day to compare and contrast.
Lovely ideas here Michelle. We have a permanent one in our school garden. And it’s a wonderful resource alongside adding to the garden. It’s a nice extension idea to make their own at home and perhaps they could share images with the class via Seesaw.
