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Hi Michelle, this is a good research question which will definitely get the children engaged in the learning process. It provides amble opportunities for students to think of ways they can be proactive in positively impacting climate change through their own personal actions.
Research Question: Are there less bees now than when your parents were children?
We could first begin with an elicitation task where the children must brainstorm in pairs everything they know about bees. This could then be displayed on a class mind map on the whiteboard. Children could draw pictures and look at pictures of bees.
They could talk to parents about whether bee population are the same or declining. Children can read about bees in books or find out information on the internet.Children could keep a journal log during the month of June of the number of bees they have seen. They could take drawings, note the date, the location and the number of bees they saw. They could use the internet to research why bees are so important.
Data could be displayed for whole school observation and discussion, along with drawings and field notes. Save-the-Bees-Classroom-Guide-Eng.pdf (provided by Supervalu).Hi Tommy, I agree that using satellite tracking apps is a great way of getting young children interested in STEM education and it also provides valuable opportunities for cross curricular linkage (as you have highlighted).
Using the Heaven’s Above website I was able to identify the following satellites that have recently passed over Ireland. These include the Hubble Telescope which was launched into orbit in 1990. It can determine the atmospheric composition of planets around other stars. Also, many Starlink satellites pass over Ireland, there are over 8,000 in total and one of starlink’s satellites objectives is to provide global mobile broadband. TERRA (EOS AM-1) is a multi-national NASA scientific research satellite in a Sun-synchronous orbit around the Earth. It is also the flagship of the Earth Observing System (EOS). It’s name “TERRA” comes from the Latin word for Earth. The satellite was placed into a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 705 km, with a 10:30am descending node. Also passing over Ireland is The International Space Station (ISS) is a large, habitable satellite orbiting Earth, serving as a space-based research laboratory and a platform for international collaboration. It’s a joint project of five space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA, and CSA. The ISS has been crucial for scientific research, technology development, and international cooperation in space.
Hi Lorraine, I agree that showing children shorter clips from the film ‘home’ is a good way of using the film to teach and highlight key topics within climate change e.g. the melting ice caps, coral reefs, over-mining, the consumption of meat and the impact of farming on the atmosphere etc.
The film ‘Home’ makes grim viewing as it is an indictment of the human race and how it has exploited the earth and its resources for own selfish gains. While I think the video is not suitable for young children there are many aspects of the film that could be utilzsed for teaching. The film refers to coral reefs which are an essential link in the chain of species and would be good topic to cover with children in relation to climate change. The film ‘Octonauts and the Great Barrier Reef’ could be shown to the class as an introduction to the topic.
‘Home’ also highlights the distances that consumer goods must travel and it states that approximately 500,000,000 containers are transported across the seas each year. Thus, fast fashion could be a topic that would be appropriate for older classes, and it would encourage them to think about the impact of consumerism on the environment.HI Dearbhail, I totally agree that the Paxi video from the European Space Agency is a great educational tool that clearly and age appropriately explains the green house effect to primary children. I agree that the Teal tool is perhaps more suited to older children.
I like that the children’s prior knowledge was elicited before the teacher begins teaching, to identify any misconceptions they may have etc. I also like that the lesson was started with a video as a way of engaging the children with the topic about future climate scenarios. Alternatives to a video could be a picture of storms, floods or the recent fires that engulfed parts of California. Children could be asked to consider what they think is causing these events and why they are happening more frequently. Children work together collaboratively which is a key component of inquiry-based teaching. The use of the free world energy and meteorology council visualization tool ‘Teal’ is a great way for children to imagine the different greenhouse gases emissions scenarios. The graphs clearly illustrate the upward trajectory in temperatures from 1950 to the present day and will help children to imagine what will happen in the future regards temperatures etc.
Hi Carmel, I really liked your idea of starting the lesson by drawing on the children’s knowledge of weather proverbs. This is a nice cross-curricular link to Literacy.
ESA resources for primary children ‘Nose up high in the sky’, learning to use our senses to describe weather conditions. ESA resource ‘weather v climate’ with links to handling data within the math’s curriculum. I really liked activity 2: weather detectives, as children get hands on experience of how to measure air temperature, how to show this information on a graph and then how to analyze the data with weather and climate in mind. Stem skills such as teamwork are utilized and problem-solving skills are necessary to work out the weekly or months average temperatures. There are opportunities with this activity to have the temperature collection done by every class, with each class given a set number of days. Data collected can be displayed on a central display board in the school for viewing and discussion. This taps into stems collective practice of open communication and the sharing of knowledge.
Thanks Patrick for the recap on the AT resources. I will also be utilizing the SETT framework in September to ensure that I am catering for the individual needs of the students, with a focus on the students’ strengths as well as areas of need.
I provide additional support in Literacy for several students with dyslexia. The learning accelerator ‘The Reading Coach’ would be really useful pedagogical tool to support the reading development of these students. The Reading Coach has several great features which would definitely help to motivate and build the confident of struggling readers. I especially liked the wide range of books that were available and the highly interactive features e.g. highlighting the readers level of accuracy, the practice word function which enables the user to have the words read aloud to them aswell as recording themselves saying the word. It has similar tools as immersive reader i.e. font sizing, spacing options, picture dictionary, grammar function etc. I also liked ‘Cloze It’ an add on available through google workspace, which allows educators to create their own cloze procedures individualized for the student.
In Maths, the maths dictionary for kids is a great tool to have at hand to quickly and age appropriately help students to understand key concepts. By incorporating these digital tools in the school development plan, we ensure inclusive practice is deployed to cater for the individual needs of all learners.Hi Mary, I too thought that recognizing and incorporating the student’s strengths into the lesson was a really useful way to engage them with the learning process. All too often the focus is primarily on what they can’t do.
Part 1
The SETT framework provides scaffolding for the teacher in incorporating assistive technology into the students support plan. It ensures that the specific needs of the student are catered for and that the supports chosen are appropriate for the environment and the task in question. The SETT framework includes due consideration to the student’s strengths and challenges. After the teacher has carefully considered the different elements (i.e. student, environment, task and tools, they will elect to use low tech, mid tech or high tech depending on what is most appropriate. (the area of need could be in Literacy, Numeracy, Language and Communication, Mobility etc.) Different assessment tools will be utilised to ensure the SETT framework and support plan are aligned. Assessment methods include, teacher observation, teacher questioning and teacher-designed tasks.
Part 2
The student is a ten-year-old boy with dyslexia and the setting is the learning support classroom for a one-to-one lesson. The learning objective is to decipher the correct context for the homophones ‘their’, ‘they’re’ and ‘there’. The student has difficulty tracking text on a page, reading small font and he often loses his place in a passage. I have adapted the lesson according to the SETT framework to ensure that his specific learning needs are met. This student enjoys playing computer games so using the Microsoft word immersive reader tool is catering for both his strengths and weaknesses. Spacing text, focusing on one line at a time, and using the dictation tool will help this student to successfully achieve the learning target for the lesson.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dN3VNQVYy63zOCYxWf-wowFRpG67TLVE/view?usp=sharing
Hi Claire, I thought this was a simple yet very effective way of catering for the individual learning needs of this child. Many times I have seen how children with reading difficulties struggle to read the class novel. This is good example of the Universal Design for Learning being utilized by good teaching practitioners.
