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Hi Aoife
You have a load of great examples here and ideas which can be used in the classroom. You have a lot of art that I have not heard about before and will be great to use in the classroom to explore the sky with the children.
Describe how you could implement a version of “Design Your own Dark Sky place” in your school/classroom?
I think this would be a great activity to carry out in school and can be modified for all classrooms and ages. It is something they would be very interested in and would allow plenty of integration such as art, science, maths, drama etc.
The children will have covered what dark sky places are, their importance, light pollution and nocturnal animals following from some of the ideas covered in the previous modules.
We would then explore the dark sky places of Ireland by researching them such as looking at their websites and for information online (can also look at other ones from around the world to gain more ideas).
The children will be split into groups in order to create a dark sky place for the school and will go through the steps of planning, designing and evaluating their dark skies place with an evaluation at the end. They will be prompted by the teacher to create maps, take photos, include information about the area.
The children will present their ideas to the classroom in their groups.
As a class we can then put our ideas together and create an area within our school grounds which is inspired by the ‘dark skies places’ and can be used as a teaching point with information on dark skies, nocturnal animals and light pollution.How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and
the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity?First I would ensure that the children understand the meaning of biodiversity and we will use a wide variety of resources such as books, encyclopaedias, videos and website to research the meaning of biodiversity and Irelands biodiversities.
We will then explore our school grounds and local area such as along the canal and the local park. The children will be encouraged to draw, take notes and/or take photos of different species they see (plants, animals and insects). The children can use keys to identify the species while out and about or from using their images and notes back in the classroom.
We could then study nocturnal animals that we might not have seen on our walks but perhaps the children have seen themselves at night such as moths, bats and foxes. Then we can take this further by exploring light pollution and how this has an effect on the species. This can be done in the form of a project or the children creating a documentary on the iPads in small groups.I love the idea of a forest school area and wild flowers in your school. Also the use of a camera at nighttime to see if any creatures are using the area and to study the local animals etc.
Hi Niamh
I also like your idea of being able to compare the light pollution of the children living in more rural areas compared to estates or in the town.
I grew up in Kerry where you could easily look up on a clear night and make out the stars, moon and constellations. I now teach in inner city Dublin where it is very difficult to see stars on a clear night and you see a lot less stars. This clearly shows me the impact of light pollution but may be difficult to comprehend for the students within my class. We would look at the idea of pollution first as a whole and then can focus more on light pollution and the impact of light pollution. We can look at our school to see what types of lights we have, if we leave lights on at nighttime and where the the lights are directed and why. Creating maps and perhaps drawing and recording the types of lights. We can also use the resources such as stellarium from the previous module to look at what our night sky should look like. The children can also record the light around their own homes using the same questions as school and bring their findings into school. This will be followed on by creating plans and posters to tackle and spread awareness of light pollution.
Using Stellarium there would be a number of different activities we could carry out which could also follow on from the previous topics of day and night allowing the children to further explore the sky and the changes that take place.
1. Use Stellarium as a whole class on the interactive whiteboard to explore a constellation such as the plough and to see what the night sky might look like on that particular night in a specific area. – allowing the children to see how to use the resource.
2. Allow the children time to explore Stellarium in small groups on the tablets in order to get used to it.
3. Create enquiry questions as a class based on the sky and constellations which the children can use stellarium to explore.
4. Create the constellations e.g. using the black card and tinfoil and string or other various models – also through drawing.
5. Ask the children to observe the sky at night and see if they could stop any of the constellations discussed and researchedI really like this idea and getting the children to compare the sky in different major cities and what is visible in each
I would look at constructing a Sundial with the class . I just completed a year with 3rd class and I feel this would have been a valuable activity we could have used. One of the topics we explored was light, how it travels and how shadows were created. This would have been a great opportunity to also explore the sundials and integrate the topic more meaningfully with the suns positions, time and night and day. The trigger used could be an image of a sundial or a trip to a sundial (there’s one in a park close to us).
I particularly like the activity of tracing the shadows with chalk outside and repeating a few times during the day to see the changes ( and prehaps write the time beside them of when they were drawn)
Students can also be encouraged to create their own sundials in small groups using a variety of materials and a planning frame.
Also drawing the position of the sun at different times of the day (morning in line, small break, big break and Home time) in an S.E.S.E. journal and looking at the position in the sky while drawing our shadows.I would look at constructing a Sundial with the class to . I just completed a year with 3rd class and I feel this would have been a valuable activity we could have used. One of the topics we explored was light, how it travels and how shadows were created. This would have been a great opportunity to also explore the sundials and integrate the topic more meaningfully with the suns positions, time and night and day. The trigger used could be an image of a sundial or a trip to a sundial (there’s one in a park close to us).
I particularly like the activity of tracing the shadows with chalk outside and repeating a few times during the day to see the changes ( and prehaps write the time beside them of when they were drawn)
Students can also be encouraged to create their own sundials in small groups using a variety of materials and a planning frame.
Also drawing the position of the sun at different times of the day (morning in line, small break, big break and Home time) in an S.E.S.E. journal and looking at the position in the sky while drawing our shadows.
