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These are great creative activities to do with your class in an outdoor environment. These could be adapted over a good few of the younger classes. I really like the idea of using body percussion to record the different sounds the children could hear in the park. It is also a great way to introduce the children to making patterns with items in the park and a lovely way to introduce recording music.
Module 5
Research a famous scientist or engineer associated with your local area and describe how you would use that person as inspiration for classroom science investigationsKathleen Lonsdale
As local as I can find for a scientist local to our area, she is also on the school plan for the class that I teach. Kathleen Lonsdale was a crystallographer and an important female scientist. I think it is really important to represent female scientists in our teaching. After learning about her life and achievements, we would then look at crystals and growing our own. Firstly, we would look at and compare salt and sugar crystals and try to sketch the differences we can see. The children can do this in small groups using magnifying glasses and possibly a microscope. We would follow this up by doing a simple experiment on growing crystals using salt on a pipe cleaner. The children would be encouraged to observe and record the progress of their crystals forming. Depending on the children’s interest, I would possibly take the lesson further and use a variety of different household items, such as Epsom salt, table salt, or baking soda, to make crystals, and we could compare the outcomes. I would set each group a different item, and we could compare the final outcomes.Didn’t think to use Google Maps to show the children the bridge in Birr. It is a great tool to have when you are not local to it. I have previously done lessons with my 1st class about bridges and we tested 3D shapes we had made to see which could support the most weight i.e cylinder or cuboid.
Module 4
Using the suspension bridge in Birr Castle Demesne or a bridge in your local area as inspiration, describe how you would plan a class or whole school challenge to design and make a bridge. How would you integrate mathematical thinking and incorporate the maths skills appropriate to your class level.In the year group I am currently teaching, Bridges is on our school plan and one of our topics during the year. I would introduce the children to bridges using pictures and showing them the different types of bridges, reflecting on bridges we know, famous bridges from around the world etc and looking at a bridge local to us. Then focusing on the Bridge in Birr Castle and learning a little bit about its history, etc.
In a further lesson I would set the children a challenge using Beebots. Beebots move in 15cm intervals. The children would be challenged to build a bridge to support their Bee-Bot to meet their friend on another table. The challenge would be to build a 30cm bridge strong enough to support a BeeBot to move across. The children would be given certain materials to use i.e. tape, lollipop sticks, construction straws, rulers, etc. They would have to test their bridge throughout the challenge to ultimately bring their BeeBot safely to the other side.I really like the idea of a herb garden as the children can take home some of the things we have grown. It is also something that can be done in a small space, as we are an urban school seriously lacking in a green area. Herbs also have a lovely sensory aspect to them – smells and textures.
Module 3
Outline how you would use some of the course resources to conduct a seasonal biodiversity project to run throughout the school year. What resources and recording sheets would you need? How often would you bring learning outdoors? How would you integrate other subject areas?As the school I am in is an urban school with no green spaces, I would work with the children on a biodiversity project. I would encourage the children to look for spaces and ways to help biodiversity in small ways. We have a rooftop garden and planter boxes around the school, so we would look at things we can plant here and what we would be supporting. Initially we would go outside and do a biodiversity survey. Using the identifier poster, etc. We would see what is in the small area we have and what is native. Using the All-Ireland pollinator plan website and the Irish wildflower website, we would then look to see what things we could plant around the school to support biodiversity. I would like to see if we could use a small area on the rooftopgarden to make a mini garden for the class for this planting. This would integrate into geography, identifying areas to plant in, making maps, Art, drawing native flowers, Science, planting and growth, Learn together, care for the environment etc.
I really like the idea of introducing the children to symbols to represent things around the school and make the recording of these things simpler for them. Also, the hook of the lost teddy is very engaging and can lead to great guessing games and development of oral language skills.
Module 2:
For younger classes, describe how you would plan and conduct a lesson on map making and explain how you might incorporate some online tools such as Google maps or GeohiveWith my second class we usually do some work on maps and looking at things from a bird’s-eye view. This year I will alter my approach slightly using some of the resources mentioned in this module. Firstly, I will take the children for a walk around the school grounds. The children will work in their groups and take note of the different areas on the grounds, the astro yard, the separate building structures, and what is in each area, like sheds, sheltered areas, etc. We will then look at the school on Google Maps and discuss each area, the shape, its use, and so on. Using GeoHive we will then look at the basic shape of the school site and buildings on it. I will print a screenshot of this for the children to have as support. We will then create our own bird’s-eye view maps—this will be a separate lesson, linking with art. We would plan ahead for making the map, and children would be asked to gather ‘junk’ from home to make the map along with some art supplies. This work would also feed into looking at the area around and what facilities we have near us.
This is a really lovely lesson idea. Children, at this age, love to learn about space and the stars. I have shown my second class the time&date website which shows you the times of sunrise and sun set over the year. It also shows the phases of darkness in nighttime and has a great picture of the yearly changes. It’s really good for comparing to other place that have different hours of daylight to us.
Module 1:
Describe how you could apply some of the concepts and skills you have learned in this module to your own teaching practice in line with the STEM Education policy statementWith my class this year I am going to approach teaching light differently. I loved all the information about lenses that was given here, and I am going to try and source some to make the telescopes. I will use station teaching as an introduction and allow the children time to explore a telescope, mirrors and prisms and explore how light can be reflected, etc, with them. This will all be free exploration, and we will discuss what we found at the end. We will follow up with lessons on telescopes and the colour spinner. Again, the children will be given a chance to explore and experiment with this once we have completed one, exploring what happens if we use different colours etc. This all links in really nicely with Science Week in our school, as second class usually has a talk with a parent who works in this field and demonstrates why the sky is blue with the light on a phone and coffee grounds.
I really like the idea of this and reinforcing the importance of tree with the children. All to often we see people wanting to cut trees down to get light in their gardens are saying that they will damage buildings around them. Showing the benefits of the trees in temperature and offering nice shady areas in the school is so important. The children could write reports on their findings for the BOM or the school newsletter too. There is also something very calming about the sound of trees rustling!
Research question: Has our unseasonable low temperatures during the summer effected growth in the school garden.
I have noticed in my own garden this summer some of the flowers haven’t bloomed and one pear tree has produced no fruit while another has produced some but nowhere near as much as it usually does. While I could blame some of this on our poor gardening skills I have noticed the same in my neighbours garden. I would use this as a starting point with the children. I would then go and get them to make observations in different parts of the school where we have plants growing. We could record using photographs and making our own drawings. We would then need to see what the plants should be doing at that time of year, probably sept/oct and compare that to our findings, are the apple trees baring fruit etc. E could look at factors that might have an effect such as the amount of light in the areas of the plants or the temperatures over the previous months, did the plants get watered over the break etc. I would then get the children to research how to care for the plants we have identified and over the course of the year I would get them to mind, prune, water etc them etc and see if it makes a difference to them, keeping a record of late frosts. I would hope that the following years teacher would take a look and see if there was any improvement in the plants. Over the year the children could report to the school during assemblies or write a short report for the school newsletter. I like the idea of having a project we work on over the year and can touch in with once a week or once every 2 weeks.Task one: Satellite Tracking
I used the app satellite chasers
1: Spacebee-168. From a constellation of 150 picosats to provide 2-way satellite communications and data relay.
2. Lemur 2 Rocinante. Low earth orbiting satellite for Meteorology and ship traffic tracking.
3. Spacebee-175. Same as space bee-168 was over the west coast
4. Lemur 2 Charlie-Rose. Same as Lemur 2 Rocinante
5. Iridium-NEXT. Communications satellite
I tracked these in one sitting, I am not sure how to use the app to see a history of what has passed over a particular location or if that can even be done. It has good information on what each satellite does, when it was launched and who by. It also provides a picture of the satellite. It is live and I think the children would enjoy seeing what is flying overhead from different parts of the world. I also only realized after the 1st 4 that it was only set to show those particular satellites and when I set to view I was amazed by what was going over us at any moment, although my phone found it hard to keep up and the app slowed down greatly.
Hi Karen,
I really like the approach you would take with the younger classes. I think you are right in showing parts of the documentary and having in depth discussions with them after each bit. I also like your introduction, I am sure the children will all want to reflect on the weather they have had over this summer when we go back in September.
Home is a beautifully shot documentary, with incredible images of the world presented to us. It shows us incredible landscapes and it explains the links between them and animals/vegetation. It has a very strong message about the damage we as humans are inflicting on our planet in our short time here.
I would be wary about showing this or the climate aid video you to younger classes in full as it might catastrophise everything a little more for them. I think they would pick up on some parts of it more leading to worry. It, to me, would work well in maybe 5th or 6th and would open up a great deal of discussion about what is driving the change, what do they think needs to be done? How is consumerism playing a part and what part do we play in that. Some clips from it would make great starting points for discussion and the information at the end is very important, to show that there are countries making great efforts to protect the environment.
The short clip about the climate action plan would also be useful in to start discussions. Most importantly to see if the children think it is enough, and are the government addressing it the right way.