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We have a wild flower area in our school grounds and engaged with No Mow May for the first time this past school year. Aside from a few hay fever issues (mostly on the part of this teacher!) they have been very successful.
I am fortunate enough to work in a school where the people living in the local area take a lot of pride in the community. There are numerous initiatives and schemes that I have seen in action in the area, the main one that springs to mind is a semi- annual community clean up. This sees volunteers from the community going around the roads and the local park and helping to clean it. It is wonderful to see the level of engagement and that all the people in the area get involved, including many of the parents and children from my school community. The area also does cycling convoys to and from the schools in the area every morning and afternoon.
The enthusiasm of the local community naturally bleeds over into the school and we have had a very active Green School’s Committee in the past. Since the pandemic, there seems to be less enthusiasm for this, which is unfortunate. Obviously the school closures and the methods for preventing spreading the virus that schools implemented had a negative effect on many school initiatives, but it is particularly unfortunate that it really broke the great rhythm that the school had maintained in terms of the various flags. Green Schools has fallen by the wayside which is a pity. However, I and a colleague have agreed to try to spearhead a revival this coming year. She and I are quite enthusiastic about sustainability and environmental awareness, so I am optimistic that we can get the Green School’s Committee back to what it was in the past.Hi Órla, I agree that this would take several lessons and the way you have laid out the plans for this unit of learning looks great. I love the fun facts you have too.
The Food Pyramid is often how nutrition and healthy eating are taught in classes, as it is visual and relatively easy to understand. This Module does a great job of giving a brief but detailed overview of the Food Pyramid, using language that would only need to be slightly adapted for primary school. It goes on to give a fantastically detailed education on protein, carbohydrates and a variety of vitamins and minerals (specifically those found in seafood), which I found enlightening. The link to the HSE’s Food Pyramid leaflet is a useful reference piece, and the image of the Food Pyramid within it would make a great poster for a classroom, as it has a lot of the information that a teacher would be covering at a glance. BIM’s Seafood Nutrition Handbook is not necessarily a child-friendly read, but there are elements that could be referred to. Some of the nutritional information could be used with older classes for a variety of maths topics, for example: percentages and weight. An activity that was introduced in this Module that I am eager to try with my class is Eye Spy in the Supermarket. I believe it would be a great way to educate the children on sustainability and healthy eating.
I agree that these resources give huge scope for integration in a lot of different curricular subjects. I love the idea of using them along with The Salmon of Knowledge story.
The ARC online lessons are a great resource for teaching the children about a number of topics. The videos are engaging and appropriate for almost all age groups. The enthusiasm that the people in the video have for the topics is contagious and it is clear that all the videos have been produced with care and love for the topics. The first video provides a great introductory platform for learning about aquaculture and covers so much that there are endless possibilities for exploring the topic further with a class. The second video about the nutrition of seafood would tie in very well to SPHE lessons on healthy eating. The third video would be a great way to contrast the communities in which fish farming proliferates and the more urban communities in which the children in my school live. The fourth video is one which I will definitely show my class. Climate Action and looking at alternative (less destructive) ways to live are topics that we cover extensively in my school. Responsible and sustainable fish farming will be a great example of one such alternative way to live. The quizzes are all pitched at an appropriate level for primary school students and look like they would be an enjoyable form of assessment for a class.
This sounds like a very interesting and engaging lesson. It allows the children to be active and investigative and uses technology appropriately.
The West Coast of Ireland has famously (or infamously) been known for poor farming and agricultural environments. The famous Oliver Cromwell proclamation of “To Hell or to Connaught” springs to mind when we look at the West of Ireland through an agricultural lens. As such, it is great to see from this Module that the West Coast is ideal for aquaculture. The shape of the coastline on the West of Ireland is really beneficial to the development of aquaculture. The variety of bays and inlets allow for bountiful fish farming while being sheltered from the extremes of the Atlantic Ocean. These different areas along the coast (along with the different water depths and intertidal zones) also facilitate variety in the fish that can be farmed. As the Module mentioned, Atlantic Salmon, Pacific Rock Oysters, and Blue Mussels are all farmed plentifully in Ireland, despite the different environments required for each of them to thrive. Aquaculture is a booming and exponentially growing industry, not just in Ireland, but throughout the world. This growth significantly benefits the coastal communities in which the fish farms are located, through boosting the economy, communications, infrastructure, trade, and tourism.
Hi Rachel,
I am in the same boat (no pun intended) as you. Not being near a coastline has meant that I was totally clueless about aquaculture in Ireland prior to starting this course. Hopefully it will be illuminating.
This Module was a fascinating introduction to aquaculture and how it benefits and impacts the country. As someone who lives in Dublin city and exclusively taught in city or suburban schools, this was not a topic that I had devoted much thought to, especially with regard to teaching. However, I believe that students would find the material interesting and thought- provoking. Studying the history of fish farming would be a novel way to combine history, geography and science. Comparing and contrasting the students’ lives to those of children from fishing villages, both historically and today, would be a fun lesson. Studying the life cycle of salmon would be interesting for the children as well. There would also be the opportunity to integrate with multiple other curricular and school areas; such as SPHE, Green Schools, Literacy and Numeracy.
I’d love to be able to bring the ARC to my school and allow the children to experience it fully. The immersive learning experience would spark significant interest and it sounds like the way the day is laid out would be perfect for older classes (3rd to 6th). The cinematic/ theatre experience would serve as a great introduction, but I particularly like that the other elements are more hands- on and allow the children to be more active in their learning. The quiz at the end will be a fun way to assess what has been learned during the visit to the ARC.Hi Maria, you are certainly lucky to have Dr. Patten in your locality. She is brilliant and having her on your doorstep is a great way to combine your local environment with the lessons.
I would begin teaching the children about rockets by having a whole class discussion to ascertain what the children already know about rockets and spaceships. I would then distribute templates of astronaut helmets for the children to colour and decorate. They would then place either drawings or photographs (depending on age) in the helmet templates. These would then be used in a large display rocket ship. On this display, we would have signs indicating the different parts of the rocket that the children named in the initial class discussion. These descriptive signs will be updated at the end of the unit of learning with all the new information that the children have learned. Similarly to the Aistear schedule that I mentioned in Module 2, I would place emphasis on astronauts, rockets and space travel for role-play, small world and design/ make Aistear stations.After watching the Launch of Vega video, the class would begin the Rocket Mice activity described in the Module. I would distribute bottles to groups of 4 to 5 children, but each child would get their own rocket mouse template. We would then have a reflective class discussion on what we learned during this experiment and how we can apply this learning to rockets. In a subsequent lesson, we would create rockets using balloons. There is a great activity on Curious Minds that I have carried out with several classes, and they have all thoroughly enjoyed it. It involves using string tied taut and across the classroom (usually attached to the legs of chairs). Each piece of string is fed through a straw before it is tied at the second end. Then using balloons and sticky tape, the children can make rockets and launch them across the classroom. The balloons are attached to the straw and inflated. The air is contained in the balloons using miniature clothes pegs. There is great scope for experimentation within this, as the children can examine how the speed at which the rocket is launched is affected by the level of inflation of the balloon, or the varying shapes of the balloons. This can also be expanded into races for an additional fun activity.
The activities from this Module that I would use in my lessons would be: Animals in the Cold and What Clothes to Wear/ Investigating Coats. The first thing I would do is engage the class in a discussion on types of weather, which would evolve into discussing how animals keep warm.
I would follow this with an activity that I have done with several classes: Blubber Glove experiment. This experiment shows children how polar bears and other animals that have blubber survive in such cold conditions. I take cooking fat or lard and place it in a zip-lock bag. This bag is passed around the class so that the children can touch it and help to squeeze and bash it. When each child has had the opportunity to feel the lard, I place the bag in a tub of ice water with the opening above the water line. Each child gets a medical- grade glove, and then takes turns dipping their hands in the water. The gloved hand will go into the bag of lard in the water and the other hand will go into the water. The child will not feel the cold in the gloved hand at all. This illustrates for the children how blubber works. In a subsequent lesson, we would have circle time in which the children would bring their coats into the circle. This would spark a class discussion involving what weather would require coats, what makes coats effective, etc. We would follow this up with the Investigating Children’s Coats lesson from Curious Minds/ Primary Science.
