Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Research Question: How is climate change affecting the weather in our local area, and what can we do to help the local environment?
Strategies to Explore the Research Question
1. Class Discussions and Brainstorming: Start with a simple discussion about weather and climate. Ask students what they know about climate change and how they think it might be affecting their local area. Brainstorm the topic to gauge their understanding and curiosity.
2. Observation and Data Collection: Engage students in observing and recording daily weather conditions. Compare this data with historical weather data (simplified for their understanding) to notice any changes or patterns.
3. Guest Speakers and Experts: Invite local environmentalists, meteorologists, or community members who have observed changes in the environment to speak to the class. This helps students hear real-life experiences and understand the local impact of climate change.
4. Research Activities: Begin research using a variety of sources to determine weather patterns over a specified period of time.
5. Finish off with a group research activity where the children will pick a specific weather event and find as much data on this event in Ireland. This will help to show if the frequency and intensity of the event has increased.
6. Discussion. Discuss what we could do in a school community to help reduce our carbon footprint. Turn off the lights, Recycle, walk/cycle to school if possible. Use the bus instead of travelling in cars.
Hi Victoria,
I agree that this is a great resource that I would really like to investigate and use in my classroom. The children would love to take photos of areas around the school.
Module 4 – EO Browser Step by Step Guide.
EO Browser is an online application that provides easy and free access to satellite imagery from different Earth Observation (EO) missions. EO Browser provides ready-to-use satellite images. It can be accessed from a desktop browser or a mobile device
With the EO Browser, you can research satellite images of any area you are interested in (e.g., your city, a glacier, the Amazon rainforest, or an active volcano). It is also possible to download the images in different formats.
EO Browser has two different modes available: Normal and Education. Foe schools it is possible to use EO Browser in the Education mode which gives the option to access specific satellite data tailored to a selected theme. Themes cover different topics, from agriculture to atmosphere and air pollution, to volcanoes and wildfires.
To find a location you can enter an area or scroll over the map. You can also zoom in or zoom out. You can also choose the type of satellite image you want to look at. Then you can enter a date and time of the image you would like. Finally you can click the visualize button. You can also change your visualization images. Finally when you are happy with your image you can download it as a jpeg image.
Home is a 2009 French documentary film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The film is almost entirely composed of aerial shots of various places on Earth. It shows the diversity of life on Earth and how humanity is threatening the ecological balance of the planet. The director Yann Arthus-Bertrand and a camera man, a camera engineer and a pilot flew in a small helicopter through various regions in over fifty countries. The documentary was filmed in all of the continents of the world, including Antarctica,
HOME showcases stunning aerial footage of the Earth, highlighting the beauty of our planet and the profound impacts of climate change. It emphasises the urgency of addressing environmental issues and protecting our natural resources.
Rather than showing the full video to my class I would focus on certain parts of it to highlight a topic I would like to introduce a particular topic. Video clips would be perfect to captivate their interest. Images and infographics are an excellent way to explain complex concepts visually.
I would use interactive activities to capture their interest and to encourage motivated learning.. For example I would use simple experiments to demonstrate effects like the greenhouse effect.
Activity 3 asked that we watch the Paxi video on greenhouse gases and use the tool for predicting future temperatures.
As an introduction to the lesson I would introduce a discussion about greenhouses gases and its impact on the world as they are regularly discussed on the media as a starting point for the lesson. Children will have heard discussions on climate change and ways we can help in their daily lives- for example the separation of our rubbish, recycling bottles and cans in shops, electric cars, cycle a bike or walk etc. People are also predicting and engaging in conversations about climate change and its influence on the world. For example: the increases in storms in Ireland as well as increased rainfall.
In my class I would use the Paxi video as a visual stimulus to start the discussion on this topic. The video was very child friendly and would be easy for them to understand. It provided a simple and clear explanation to the greenhouse gas effect.It ended with a positive outlook on how we can help individually to reduce the effects of greenhouse gases through simple activities. I feel this is very important as children should not feel burden or anxious that they alone are causing this problem. Every little step can make a big change.
The tool I would select is the temperature predictor. This tool can be used to show how temperatures can increase where we live and predict future temperatures.
Unravelling STEM: Beyond the Acronym- The paper by Liston (2018) looks into the broader implications of STEM education beyond its literal letters. STEM education places importance on an interdisciplinary approach, integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with literacy. It encourages critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration. Effective STEM education goes beyond rote learning and focuses on real-world applications. It supports the learning of all students including those with different learning styles and those with learning difficulties. STEM promotes an all inclusive education.
In any classroom it should involve hands on activities, cross curricular projects, inquiry based learning where they are focused on a problem and work in groups when appropriate and use different equipment and technology to help solve the problem.Activity 1: Is it weather or climate?
To extend this activity, I would try discussing real-world examples of weather events versus climate trends. Activities 1 & 2 are ideal STEM activities for creating inquiry-based experiments that the children can learn from. The children will use their creativity in their design for their weather station.
Activity 2: Weather Detectives
I really like how this activity links in data collection in Mathematics and will bring this strand to life and it will connect with real life experiences. To extend this further, pupils could collect data on other weather variables (rainfall, wind speed) or compare data across different locations. It is important to allow the children to reflect on where to place the thermometer, the time of day to record it. It gives them responsibility for recording data and the opportunity to graph it mathematically.