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As a hands on teacher my class usually write to the farmer about his job and then the farmer comes in and brings a calf into my classroom so how wonderful to invite someone from aquaculture to come in, whether a diver from the salmon farm to someone from the oyster farm who can talk about the oyster farm and might bring some to show us. We like to have a list of questions to ask before the person arrives to discuss their occupation and then bring in some equipment to go with their job whether mesh bags, clothes they wear on the oyster farm. This can then lead us to ask about their clothes and what materials are waterproof using STEM to discover the most suitable clothing and why do they use mesh bags for pyster farms and discovering other materials for bags or why mesh is the most suitable as we look at the Unit of Materials. I am looking forward to bringing in fish wrappers and discovering about sustainable fish and what each symbl means, Origin Green lable etc. BYusing hands on inquiry based learning the children are using all their skills from STEM Statement using problem solving, critical thinking. This should then lend itself to the school policy and how spiral approach from the youngest classes to the older children. Octonauts can teach us a lot too. The ARC resources will enable teachers to provide informative, child friendly lessons without putting pressure on teachers, it enables them and to facilitates great learning experiences.
How exciting to see how the places we can’t use it for agriculture due to the mountainous areas can be used for aquaculture. As someone with a daughter who wants to do marine biology but in school is not being encouraged as it is seen as niche how exciting to see how aquaculture has grown and all the jobs that BIM has laid out that can be undertaken. With our mild climate it is perfect temperatures and I cannot believe how much the tidal changes the fishing eg the mussels, the oysters needing the sheltered areas so the mesh bags can be changed over by staff. As for lesson planning how exciting to show children the country they live in, outlining where the different counties are, the different coastal regions. As I teach in a landlocked county how exciting to teach the children about the coast in a different way. We already teach about the coast, lighthouses of ireland, RNLI so how exciting to add aquaculture to my planning. They can use Google Earth to find suitable coastal area for the farm, they can investigate the infrastructure in that area, transport links, find suitable places to set up factory/distribution centres while blending in with the environment and making it complement the area rather than being an industrial building detrimental to the landscape. There could be tours of the factory, finding out meals that can be cooked with the salmon or mussels. The children can investigate local hotels and restaurants the farm could sell to aswell as explaining exporting to the wider population.
How amazing to see what is happening in aquaculture and I loved the history of how it went all the way back to China and yet it is so knew to us since 1970s despite having the coast all around us. I was very naieve and didn’t know how long some of these creatures took to harvest and with the mesh bags turning them regularly. I know this will be so fascinating to show my children as I am sure they think only of a fishing rod or net. I am shocked to hear ARC exists and I never even knew. They have made it so child friendly and I link all my subjects so integrating it with geography and Taste of the Atlantic, linking it to places along Wild Atlantic Way, linking to history and unit of story teaching Salmon of Knowledge, linking to Science and Geography with the online lessons of food and nutrition as we teach about healthy eating and benefits of fish in SPHE. Finding out more about the jobs of people in the community can link us again with geography. There are so many ways to bring aquaculture into my classroom. The online lessons are so interactive and local to our country.
Grainne, love outdoor teaching, it is so much fun. It is great to have your classroom dark enough to get great shadows. It sounds fun, thanks for sharing.
Where to start? I have loved watching the videos and they ask the children so many questions, what a super example of inquiry based and investigations rather than me just telling them the answers. Being active in the Junior Room and plenty of movement and my love of the outdoor classroom means look away now if that isn’t for you.
Using three children -one as the sun, one as the earth and one as the moon we will investigate what happens when the earth is turning, what is happening as the earth moves around the sun and then thirdly after a while introduce the moon moving around the earth. They can see as the earth turns that part of the child is away from the sun so night time and then day time in the other part of the world. We can ask a lot more questions of what is happening than just telling them, asking where is the sun/ where are we? The child can show ireland on him as he turns. So we can see where we are at each stage. Then as the earth moves around the sun we can see how we are not facing the sun and it is now winter. Each of these parts wil be introduced one at a time, the earth on its own axis, the earth moving around the sun and then the moon, perhaps on another day.
On a rare sunny day we head outside and before we go we guess where the sun wil be outside, will it be outside our classroom, outside the senior room, near the gate or near the trees. We will draw it on our page and the older class can also write the time. Then we will go out at lunchtime and repeat and before hometime. They will see that the earth is moving.
We will play a game catch the shadow so Shadow tag. choose two children and they catch other children by landing on their shadows.
We will look at where the shadows of the tree were facing when we went outside to find where the sun was at 9.30am, we will look at the shadow of the tree at 12pm and see if it is shorter, longer, which direction the shadow is and again asking the children lots of questions.
We will bring items from the classroom to draw their shadows. We draw our friend’s shadow.
For homework we will record the time of sunrise, sunset and where does the sun rise at their house, where do they see the sun when they wake up- will it be front of the house or side or back.
some great ideas everyone. I’m Shirley and will be covering junior senior infant maternity leave. I love space but my favourite thing is the position of our planet, just the right distance from the sun to not burn or freeze us but perfect!
One of my favourite inquiry lesson was last year middle room we made play dough people and i gave each group basins of water . We had to design a mini lifejacket, buoyancy aid so the person would survive. we used wool, felt, rubber, tinfoil, corks, bubble wrap, polystyrene, foam to construct and decide which worked best to help the man float. I love mind maps for planning as usually I will put the topic in the middle then write different ideas and cross curricular so whether we write Starry Night under Art or history Neil Armstrong- life of famous person or whether we write creative stories I woke up in Space. Art:papier mache making planets, Maths: counting planets, Music:The Planet Song, SESE The sun, Solar System.
