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Marie had a good idea of linking her project to a local canal to look at flooding, this could also work for my own idea. I like Karl’s idea of looking at local biodiversity. The idea of even speaking to older residents of an area to see if anedotally some plants are more or less prevalent is a great way to connect the investigation between school and home.
I think engaging the children’s curiosity is the most important aspect to initiating a scientific question. It has often fascinated me how interested children are in when you were young or just in something personal. I would lead with a remark from my own mother who maintains that summers were sunnier and less wet when she was young. Taking this point i’d ask the children to prove or disprove that the weather has become wetter and less sunny in summertime than in the young days of their parents or grandparents.
We could begin by predicting what amount of sun and rain is present in the month of June. Children could predict then observe, logging hours of sunshine, measuring rain fall in their homemade rain gauges and graphing the results. Lots of STEM skills involved already from observing to measuring and estimating. After analysing their own data we could refer to the Teal Tool and have a look at the data from previous years back to the 1950s, this should cover the age range that we set in the question. This scientific question could be bookended by the children talking to their parents and grandparents before and after their investigation. They could present their results in graph form or introduce their parents to the Teal tool and also have a look at what the tool predicts for the future.
Edel mentioned Astra 1P for broadcasting, I didn’t know satellites could be fixed. Marie mentioned Black Knight, an old piece of space hardware, no doubt one of the many pieces of debris that man has put in space. There’s no end to what we will pollute!
Communication, navigation, military and scientific are among the many reasons the Earth’s orbit is becoming overcrowded with satellites. It’s amazing how many are in circulation.
Starlink is a well known name and there are many in orbit. According to astronomy Ireland, they are the vermin of the sky. They help to provide high speed internet access and also have been used in a military capacity to relay data and communicate in areas that are challenging for alternative means.
The ISS is the most well known satellite orbiting the earth. It’s primary function is in space research.
Eirsat 1 is Ireland’s first satellite. It studys gamma ray bursts in space as well as testing thermal coastings developed for satellites. It was developed in UCD.
RANGE -A this satellite launched in December 2018 is used for amature radio.
PISat is a satellite built with the purpose of giving its creators hands on experience building satellites. Its function is to observe the earth and create accurate images.
Meteosat 8 is a satellite with the main purpose of observing the weather. It is no longer functioning and has been moved higher to prevent it from colliding with other satellites. This is called a graveyard orbit, who’d have known!
I think Karl hit the nail on the head by suggesting age appropriate material depending on which class. I think the use of Paxi again could be a good segway into a serious topic.
I think the first clip with the mad world soundtrack could be used to shock children into realising what an awful world we have created and are responsible for. I would probably only use with 5th and 6th classes.
There is a lot of facts present in the film Home. I think I would divide the movie into chunks to help the children digest all the information and to give to some time for thought and reflection. Taking the first 20 minutes of the movie I would hope to elicit from the children the key message which is that Earth is our only home. I think there is great footage to help the children marvel at how amazing the world and all its physical features is. Perhaps a quick activity would be to ask the children which feature they most marvel at, is it the volcanoes? Ocean? or the animals?
There is a good mix with history so i think it would be prudent to preteach how civilisations have come about and the great shifts in mankind through the agricultural and inductrial revolutions. Some key questions could be , how has man manipulated the earth for his benefit? And what are the negative effects of man’s involvment with nature? This last question could be the source of a mini project for pupils as the movie highlights how negatively we impact our other humans particularly those in developing countries as well as the negative environmental impact.
Finally having gone through the movie in sections , I would try and finish with a note of optimism. Children could discuss what they can do to help the situation. Also they could think about how our government and others around the world could improve the situation.
I like Diarmuid’s idea of using Activity 3 as a springboard to a project where we could improve our carbon footprint.
Having spent some time working with the teal tool, I have to say that it wouldn’t be a resourse i’d run to especially with a class of children less than 5th or 6th. Maybe it’s me but I find the resourse difficult to work with. It is certainly something to stimulate the children who are mathematically minded and love to see figures but for me as a teacher with a whole class , it would have to be a no no. To begin with the teal bot i found confusing to work with, when I realised I didn’t need itthen clicking on countries and looking at the simple graphs and projections seems easy and worthwhile, however, if I was asking the children to complete the exercise in Activity 3 Climate reporters, I really don’t know how to find out the data for each month. When i downloaded some data on word and through PDF it was difficult to interpret. At best I might show this resourse on a whiteboard to all the class and work through some material as a whole class group. I think at a basic level you can see how the graphs are all rising and thus showing children that our current path and climate trajectory is not good.
The Paxi video is great. It is concise, engaging and I would happily show it to all class levels. It highlights the problem, explains the issue clearly and offers a more hopeful note as it mentions that we can all do something to affect climate change.
I like Ken’s idea of connecting the children with their own experiences around weather, walking to school or holidays etc. Brian makes a good point of the amount of active learning involved in these lessons.
I like these activities. They are very accessible for many age groups and really fit the STEM profile. It is the simple engineering and technology in the making of the anemometer and rain gauge that works really well and with some SNA help I think this activity is easily done with classes younger than the age profile given. A simpler graph could be made by the teacher to log the data collected by the rain gauge or anemometer for younger pupils or with older classes, 5th and 6th, you could ask them to come up with their own way of logging the data. The mathematical part of STEM is easily hit here. The pre teaching of the science aspect of weather is again hitting the STEM brief.
I think I would begin all these lessons by giving some homework to the children to talk to parents or grandparents about proverbs so it would be an easy intro to the lesson the next day. I think there is room for lots of discussion and there might be many proverbs from children whose parents or families come from outside Ireland. The discussion about senses is something that could be linked to literacy and story writing and what I like is how the info can be logged by just using drawings for younger children instead of words. Part three of the lesson could be a lot of fun for older classes as they can let their imagination and design skills go at making allsorts of interesting and funky anemometers and rain gauges.
Some great ideas from Michaela, a class eco map and creative upcycling, super. Emma mentioned the tidy towns and an energy free day which is also a great idea.
I moved to Newbridge in 2010. It is the home of Bord na Mona and this is a good place to start as it is a well known employer in the town. It has moved away from harvesting peatlands and fossil fuels in the past few years. The rewilding and rehabilitating of the peat bogs means they are there for future generations and they also lock in a lot of carbon.Bord na Mona have been pursuing renewable sources of wind , solar, biomass and they also have a focus on green hydrogen and energy storage solutions. This is a huge topic to unpack with the children in school. It shows what developments are going on in the local area that will have a major impact not just for the locals but nationwide and further. It would be important also to look at local bogs that are being preserved.
We could discuss with the children about areas of the town including their estates that have a wild flower or nature reserve area. There is a lot to say about recycling, both from home and school. The recent can and bottle schemes as well as their own household recycling. With so much residential building in the area, a good topic would be sustainable homes and how the children can reduce their own carbon print by doing simple things like turning off lights. Finally we could talk about our local river, the Liffey, how can we preserve it for future generations.
I think Dolores has some good ideas for English, Geography and Wellbeing. She also mentions a lot of the vitamins and minerals found in seafood, perhaps that could be expanded into what exactly those minerals do for our bodies.
Nutrition awareness has become more prevalent in society and the classroom is a great place to start the conversation. Children need to know how their bodies are fuelled and this topic is for both science and SPHE. It’s a great subject to start the year with as you can also incorporate the school’s healthy eating policy. It’s important for children to understand both macro and micro nutrient dense foods. Children need to know how the sugary foods which they all crave can be detrimental to their health and how it can impact their concentration levels in school. I believe this knowledge needs to find its way into households as many parents do not provide healthy lunches.
Starting with the food pyramid , I would argue that it may be outdated and protein sources are needed more. Here our seafood comes into its own and can be shamelessly promoted for the macro benefits of being high in protein and also the high quality minerals and vitamins it contains which are essential for a healthy body. The lesson idea of examining food labels in the supermarket is great and comparisons could be made to less healthy foods. Famous athletes and footballers could be used to promote healthy living and diet, you won’t find Ronaldo munching mars bars on a regular basis!
A good point to make is how so much of our health seafood is exported instead of being consumed at home, why should other countries be more healthy! We really need the vitamin D, France, Spain and Portugal get lots of sun and eat more seafood. Maybe that’s why they keep beating us in soccer!!
A varied, stem rich framework was a key phrase used above by Andrea, there really is no end to the subjects touched on in this course. An aquaculture theme based approach is another good idea from Louise. Often we rush over topics and there is a lot in this course. Susan mentioned the floating fish farm design which is great and also highlighted the use of ARC lessons in learning support, something which would grab the attention of students.
