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Consider how many Songs / Poems /Art can you think of to connect us with the Night Sky?
Using the arts of song/music, visual art and poetry can instill an interest and sense of exploration in the children. It sparks an interest that can be explored through role play, drama and of course, the curiosity leads to questions being asked and lots of exploration taking place.
Useful songs include but not limited to:
Twinkle twinkle
Spaceman – Babylon zoo
Starman – David Bowie
Stargazing – myles smith
The planet song – youtube
The solar system song – kids tv
Moon River – Andy Williams
Dancing in the moonlight – toploader
Reach for the stars – s club 7
Sky full of stars, Cold play
Midnight sky – Miley Cyrus.
Lots of feelings and questions can be discussed with the use of these songs .
Some Poems:
T’was the night before Christmas
Stardust- Michael D Higgins
Bright Star – John Keats
The moon – Robert Louise Stevenson.
Art samples:
Starry night, Vincent Van Gogh
Moonlit night, Kandinsky
Seascape.
Observation and exploration of these pieces of visual art will enable our children to create their own pieces of art work to represent the night sky as they see it in their own areas.
How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity.
With the group of student I have, a class of children in the moderate range, our work needs to be relative for them to be engaged.
We would talk about where we live, what we need, i.e. food water etc and then relate this talk back to other creatures. We would begin with animals we have knowledge of – dogs, cat etc and then I will introduce the idea of smaller creatures with some powerpoints and images of butterflies, moths, birds, caterpillars, worms ,insects etc. We will go on a nature inspection on our school grounds – which includes a garden center and our own sensory garden. We will record with photograph, what we have found and we can link this back to the pollinator plan when we are in the sensory garden with the smells/textures and long grasses.
This is a lovely theme where we can have lots of home links also with video/photos of their own local areas where we might identify areas like rivers, lakes, beaches etc which might give us food for thought in exploring other biodiversity. We will make comparisons with the creatures found and discuss the difference in the areas re light pollution and discuss why more birds etc found in particular areas.
Light pollution in my area.
I am currently living in a very built up suburb of cork city. As well as glow from shop fronts there are the constant glow from the heavy traffic and the constant glow from the very many streetlamps. Whilst I acknowledge the lamps are semi shield, and pointing down, the actual quantity of them combines to a force of light that makes you believe it is almost day. It is of course a necessity in the dark nights but such a shame that simple things such as shooting stars and bright starry nights are missed out on. The recent displays of the northern lights were no where to be seen- a mystical mystery that was not to be seen. The days of going to bed because it was ‘dark’ for kids is long gone, just a glance outside the window shows light and brightness, a confusion to our sleep system, betraying us, and denying us a regulated nights sleep at times. I remember as a child going on holidays to the coast, and sitting outside with my family on deckchairs looking up and finding the north star and competing to see who can see the first or the most shooting stars and making a wish. The beautiful starry nights are a feast not to be seen in our typical night skies anymore – in part due to the levels of night pollution – I suppose an ‘evil’ necessity these days.
I particularly enjoyed the one year on Earth resource (understanding the seasons) as it is a lovely one to explore with my group of children, in my moderate level class in a special school. My children love working outside and many of the lessons can incorporate going outside. This is a theme where the understanding is better in the present, rather than talking about the summer in Winter. So we would link science/geography/language lessons each term to complete out observations of the changing seasons. We would dedicate a notice board in our classroom and divide it up with a border into quarters, each season, sticking up an art representation of a tree that we have observed – with leaves, some leaves, no leaves etc. We would also make sure to have a representation of the sun position and a class photo to show what clothes we are wearing this season – hat/gloves/raincoat/t shirt, sandals etc. We will also have a symbol to show which if any event/celebration takes place during this season – christmas decoration, easter egg, shamprock, heart etc.
Constellations:
A very interesting theme/topic that can be made very sensory/tactile to suit a class like mine in a moderate level class in a special school.
An initial exploration of light pattern would be explored in photos and images on the whiteboard, using stellarium and see if we can find other shapes/images in the sky. We would experiment using torches and cut out shapes/neon coloured car, as a small group in the schools multi sensory room. We would then create our own on paper constellations on the worksheets from spaceweek.ie and encourage our friends to name them/say what they see. We would them split into groups and some will replicate their own constellation in 3d using balls of foil and twine hanging from clothes hangers and others will use the tin foil/box method to poke holes and create their constellation for use in our class made planetarium. My children would work 1:1 or in pairs in this setting to observe and explore and discuss what they see, and explain why some stars look bigger, closer/further away etc.