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How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and
the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity?
The idea of Biodiversity can be introduced when doing bug hunts and birdwatching and identifying plants and grasses etc. in the school grounds or local scrubland/ woods. I would also use videos and websites that were included in the module as they were very effective. I would also have engaged the students in learning about light pollution/ definition/ causes etc.by doing the Esero inquiry in the previous module. The lighting audit included drawing children’s attention to lamps that may have been near bushes or plants that were habitats and whether they thought animals might have been disturbed by the light/ how it would affect them.
I would use the Bat video shared in the module or something similar as a prompt to precede wondering about what other animals are nocturnal and what adaptations they might have as they hunt and feed at night. There is some specific vocabulary to be taught also. The bat/moth game would be a fun activity to explore echo location. They may also wonder about how these animals would be affected by light pollution. It may be possible to organise an evening time observation of insects etc. near the school, but children can do some of this observation at home. A great idea shared in the module was leaving a torch on inside a window and looking at insects around streetlights. I would also like to try the How well can I navigate in the dark? enquiry if the children had wondered about that. I think the next step would be to allow children to research specific crepuscular and nocturnal animals they were interested in learning about that are in the local area or native to Ireland. A grandparent survey might also be useful when investigating this topic, as grandparents may remember plants and animals that were more commonly seen when they were young that are less common now and children could investigate why this might have happened or make a link to lighting.Lovely idea about planting specific nighttime / evening time plants like jasmine. You’re absolutely right. Small changes make a big difference.
I think your approach is well thought out Aoife. I was wondering how to tackle the effects on animals as it’s so broad, but actually focusing on local birds is a good idea that I would use.
Module 3
Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
When considering how to create a planet observing plan in the last module I had already started considering the light pollution in my area and the impact this would have on any planned planetgazing or stargazing. My father has a great interest in astronomy but even in the rural area in which he lives, there is far more light pollution than you would expect. This is generated on nearby farms, with strong industrial strength lighting illuminating farmyards throughout the night. I do not remember these lights being there when I was a child or teenager. There are large sections of this country road where you would not need to use a torch when walking at night nowadays. I teach in the village where streetlights are on all night long. I sleep in a bedroom at the back of the house but there is still some light from neighbouring houses and/or the houses behind. The school is surrounded by housing on three sides and a main road on the other with a lot of streetlighting. In fact, in recent times the streetlights were extended on either side of the village, which I don’t think was necessary. I found this module very interesting (very illuminating!) and I learned a lot. I expect my students may not know much about it either so I would use the Esero Curious minds document as written that was shared in this module. Light is a topic to be engaged in with my class this year so it’s perfect. Even the after-school audit element of the inquiry could be facilitated as enough students live in an estate next door to the school and could share observations and their record with any who were not able to attend. From the next step section I would definitely encourage students to take part in the GlobeAtNight dark skies reporting, there is even a parents letter with instructions already available on the website. I think I personally would like to investigate more about how this affects wildlife in our area, but you would have to see where the students’ interests/questions took you at that stage.Great ideas for extra work/ activities involving the planets. I know some people have mentioned the difficulty of getting a clear night butI think one of the biggest barriers in my area would be light pollution.
Create an observing plan for autumn that shows which planets are visible in the evening sky.
I would love to do this with my class, and this was a great opportunity to look at how I might plan it out. This would require communication with home and school and would be a great opportunity to use digital tools to enhance learning. I have looked at timeanddate.com and Stellarium to get an idea of what might be visible, and Autumn seems like a great time to do some stargazing. I looked at some dates in September to see what might be visible and was quickly able to find out that the 8th and 9th would be great nights to see Jupiter, Saturn and Mars with the naked eye, as well as Venus. Uranus and Neptune might also be visible with a telescope or good binoculars. Stellarium is amazing and I also found the Stargazing Ireland site useful as it listed the top ten things you could search for in autumn, including Ursa Major, Orion, Seven Sisters, the Andromeda Galaxy, two different meteor showers and a Harvest Moon. Although it would be tempting to draw up a list with dates and times now, I actually think it would be more beneficial to students if they chose what to search for and what form this might take. So doing work on stars vs planets and constellations first is probably a good idea. They could also make a Starwheel. I think that I would introduce them to timeanddate and Stellarium in school using the iPads and send links home for parents. The students could search for suggested planets if they are unsure what to do, or make their own plan. They could take photos and send them in to me in the usual way so we can share them on the IWB and it might be fun to print out some or work on them digitally, labelling them etc. or make annotated drawings. I know I have included stars and constellations as well as planets, but it seems a pity not to. Setting this as an after-school task requires some extra assistance for some pupils re technology access but is still doable. It would be lovely to have a guest speaker or an evening in the school grounds to do some planet and stargazing and with unpredictable weather might be a little tricky to organise but it would be great fun.Great idea to use the shadow tracing as an initial activity before making the sundial. A few people have also mentioned marking all the cardinal points, not just north, which is great integration of maths, especially the new objectives in the new curriculum around rotations.
Plan how your students could “observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day”.
I have done the observation part of this before but hadn’t worked out a way to keep a scientific/ written record. I just brought students out at different times of day and they described where the sun was and how the position had changed. Students took turns recording approximate sunrise and sunset times in groups as this happened outside of school time dependent on time of year and we used a website to check times. This helped to reinforce the idea of the different positions as students might have to go to a completely different room in the house to see the sun set versus rise. I had not actually thought about just recording sun position on a window of the classroom which would be very simple and effective. Unfortunately, at the moment the classroom I’m in only has one bank of outward facing windows and the view is onto a terrace. I think with the layout of our yard, and some building obstruction, a photographic record might be most useful. It would incorporate math as students would have to make sure that the photograph would be taken from exactly the same position and a tripod or table was at exactly the same height. We might have to take a photo in front yard and back. Or if possible, the phone or iPad could be left in position and take a photo on the hour. Then the sequence of photos could be shown on the IWB. The make a sundial activity would further reinforce the learning. I like the outside one that was made with the bamboo rod and stones. Everyone would be engaged and it’s hands on, which is always better. This would be a lovely activity to give for homework after students had made one in school. It would be a lovely art project.