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Dúchais.ie is a great resource and so easy to access exactly your area. Of course there was a much greater emphasise on nature years ago in school and a lot of stories and poems written and told had strong links with nature and biodiversity.
These are lovely ideas. I love how you’ve incorporated maps and map making with biodiversity in the school grounds. There are lots of opportunities for learning and questioning and challenging student’s thoughts and presumptions.
Map making in primary. This was a great module. Maps and mapping can be challenging to make interesting but there were lots of tools and ideas to teaching this topic in a fun and engaging way. I intend to do a novel next term- Kensuke’s Kingdom and I can incorporate maps into this book easily by mapping the family’s journey. First, the pupils need to become familiar with maps and mapping. Concepts such as coordinates(play battleships), legends and keys, scale, contour lines, physical feature and natural features, borders etc. National geographic is a great site for explaining these concepts. Online map makers are also freely available and pupils can create their own maps using legends, colour coding etc. (mapchart.net and mymaps.google.com ) Of course I have Google Earth on my interactive board and the pupils love to discover new places here. All in all there are lots of resources for map making and lots of opportunities to link to other subjects.
My school is located in a heritage town so we are quite lucky, historically anyway. Usually at the beginning of the school year we go on a town walk, observing the architecture and I would especially focus then on modern and environmentally friendly ways in which the town gets energy. We look at types of street lighting, communal areas, opportunities for wildlife habitats and so on. As a continuation of this, this year we will look at the wider area – why was this town a plantation town ( good land, near border etc.) We will then look at all the different habitats surrounding the town – fertile land, rivers and lakes, upper bog-lands, hedgerows, woodlands. Groups can split up and research these habitats further by online research and by interviewing relatives. One of the main features of our town is the stone circle. Again, this shows the importance of the town. The children can explore how the stone circle worked. A number of years ago we had John Ruddy out with us to the stone circle and he explained everything so it would be great to do that again .Pupils can then create a pinterest board on all they have learned and show it to other classes.
Lovely ideas. My class took part in an engineering activity where they hard to build a bridge strong enough to hold a bottle of water and the bottle had to be able to go under the bridge. They only had paper(A4) and sellotape. Each sheet of paper was worth 5000 euro and the team that built the best bridge for the least amount of money won. It was quick and easy and good fun.
I would use images and the film from the 70’s as a stimulus at the beginning. The children can explore online the different types of bridges and why do we have different types – uses. Then the children will, in groups, decide upon which they would like to build using lego pieces. Before the pupils embark on their project they will be inform as to what the bridge must be able to do-can it carry the weight of a 500ml water bottle? Can the bottle be rolled under the bridge(length ways)? Using the planning framework, the class will take each step by working collaboratively and communicating effectively. Assign roles within groups, such as head engineer, recorder, supplier(sourcing particular pieces for the job. Once built, it is important that the children get the opportunity to evaluate their creation – using two stars and a wish- what went well and what we could have done to make it better.
I like the idea of voice recording of observations and photos. This could turn into a great project over the year. I can see how the pupils would take ownership of it. A presentation at the end of the year, using different media, would be a lovely way to end the year.
Outline how you would use some of the course resources to conduct a seasonal biodiversity project to run throughout the school year. What resources and recording sheets would you need? How often would you bring learning outdoors? How would you integrate other subject areas?
I did a course in my local national park a couple of years ago and I found this course was a great continuation and revision of it. Since that course my class have had a plain copy in which we went outside and observed different aspects of the school grounds and then sketched or took a rubbing or made a list list or recorded details. We did this once a month or so. I found it was a lovely activity which allowed the children to just reconnect with nature. It also was quite good for well being and so we did nice relaxation exercises before and after each session. THis year I intend to use the resources found here to enable the pupils to identify species and to support me as I develop this area. I also intend to lay a piece of wood in the garden and observe life underneath monthly. For cross curricular the class can keep a diary documenting the observations.
The framework is a great resource and I agree it will encourage teamwork, creativity and communication in the classroom.
I have struggled in the past to organise and structure a discovery based STEM lesson. However, I can now see how useful the ESRO framework for inquiry template would be very useful. The framework will help me as a teacher to teach the lesson but also putting the focus on the pupils by learning through inquiry and discovery. Using the ESRO framework (Experience, Share, Reflect, Organise) in the classroom enhances student engagement and learning. It encourages active participation, critical thinking, and collaboration. Students explore ideas through experiences, share insights, reflect on learning, and organise knowledge. This structured approach deepens understanding and supports meaningful, student-centred inquiry-based learning. It also supports the teacher and encourages more confident and methodical teaching of scientific concepts in the classroom. Most importantly it will make any lesson more engaging and fun for the learner and educator, making science a more accessible subject for all. A great template that could be used across many subjects.
The link that you gave had some lovely stories about the night. It’s amazing the amount of material on a theme that I would not have explored before.
After looking at the Folklore Collection, I decided to look at it from a weather perspective. There are lots and lots of little stories and piseoga about the night sky and how it can foretell the weather. Some are as simple as -if you see the stars at night there is frost. However, there are some that talk about the constellations, for example; The “bull” is the name given to a group of 14 bright stars. When the “bull” is on its legs it is a sign of bad weather. Or: A bright moon with a lot of stars is almost always followed by a fine day; but if the moon is dull and the stars are covered with mist rain is not far off. Or: Shooting or falling stars mean wind storms.
Some of these piseoga are from my school’s local areas. It would be a lovely project to do with the children. The children can collect information from the collection, record it and present their findings to the school. It would also be nice to invite some more senior members of the community in to talk about old weather lore that they heard when they were young.
The project would cover a lot of objectives throughout the curriculum.
I love the ‘No Mow May’ idea. The class can ask the principal and discuss with the caretaker on what areas could be left without mowing.
How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity?
I would begin by engaging the pupils with a trigger question and by showing the class one of the videos explaining what biodiversity is. After that we would investigate biodiversity in our school grounds. We could do this by exploring a specific area (2 metre squared) and record what is found(plants and animals).
Following that, we will investigate the lighting on the school grounds. I am aware that there are lights on throughout the night and this might effect the biodiversity. We will then approach the principal and ask if the lights could be changed. If yes, and the lights are changed, we can then repeat our investigation and hopefully there would be an increase in the number of species.
An extension would be to explore other ways to protect and promote biodiversity in our school.
