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Doireann I love the idea of linking with Halloween. It allows a stronger link with night time and it would also encourage the children in creative writing after hearing stories from the locality.
Prepare a school project to collect piséogs/ traditions/ stories of the night
As I will be teaching sixth class I would use the children in the class to record such stories. I would encourage the children in the school to go home and ask their parents and especially their grandparents about any tales they know from the past. It would be something that I would link with Grandparents Day and it would allow children in younger classes to get involved also. Kids in the younger classes could then retell stories orally or even handwrite them for the children in my class. I would encourage the children in my class to spend time illustrating some key parts of the stories and we would then put the stories together. I would then get the children to compile these stories into a school book – our storybook. I think this project would be very beneficial as it would be a means of recording stories from our past so that they are not lost with the older generations and so they can be passed down through generations.
Hi Doireann,
I like your ideas for engaging children surrounding the topic of biodiversity. Allowing pupils to have a voice is key and giving them the chance to bring their newly acquired knowledge home to help biodiversity surrounding their home will make a huge impact.
Incorporating the needs of nocturnal species requires some important decision-making regarding the lighting in school. Planning to use shielded lights rather than unshielded ones helps us to prevent light pollution and gives nocturnal species a chance to use the area around the school. Despite clever decision-making like this schools should strive to use warm lighting which helps prevent light spillover and does not impact animals feeding due to such intense light. A school letter to parents and teachers teaching students about the impacts light pollution is having on nocturnal animals would also be very beneficial. While a school is a source of light pollution imagine if we could encourage all families in the locality to try and prevent as much light pollution as possible. This would have a far greater impact on nocturnal animals rather than solely focusing funds on removing light pollution around the school grounds.
Hi Doireann,
I completely agree that the light pollution in Cork is affecting our ability to stargaze at night. Our ability to see the Milky Way is diminishing.
Fortunately, I live in a rural area but despite this light pollution affects my locality greatly. The position of my home is that the front is out onto a main rural road with street lights and a playing pitch positioned behind my house (fully lighted). The difference between when the lights are on and when they are off is quite stark. I enjoy the ability to look out and stargaze when I happen to be out at night and this is impossible to do when the pitch lights are on. They are fully unshielded and change the lighting levels in the local area quite drastically.
To challenge the children in my class I would encourage them to try and stargaze for a night during the winter. Speaking to children about where they live and the light sources around them that may be causing light pollution. I would then encourage them to write a letter to a local councillor discussing the harmful levels of light in the area.
Talk and discussion around how the moon changes throughout the month. Talk about the moon going in phases and that we can tell the phases through looking at them. Talk about the moon today- where is it, what phase is it in? how do we know that? Discuss that we are going to observe the moon today to try and see some of the finer detail on the moons surface. We will use the school’s telescope to set up and view the details of the moon. I would use this lesson and integrate it with art and history. It would be a link with the space race and the children would sketch the details of the moon. Following up on the lesson throughout the week we would use a solar chart in which the children focus on the slight changes the moon makes throughout the month.
Doireann, I agree that the one year on earth resource has some excellent trigger questions for children and allows children independence and further exploration of other science topics.
Building a sundial for the schoolyard.
I love the idea of constructing a sundial with my 6th class. It allows the children to work with their hands, explore a time-telling method and learn about ancient history.
First of all, I would discuss with my class their knowledge of a sundial—the history surrounding them all the way back to ancient Egypt. I would be asking questions such as what were they used for. Are they still usable today? Etc. We would then discuss setting our stick at a 40-degree angle to allow for the tilt of the sun throughout the seasons. We would have a further discussion on the set-up of the stick. Which way should it be tilting to allow for a shadow that is measurable for Irish time? I would ask some higher-order questions by challenging the students with if we were in Australia would our setup be the same? Why or why not?
I would then place the students into their mixed-ability groups of three. In this they would have to plan their steps of completion, drawing a diagram and labelling would allow for a clear transfer of skills from the classroom to their project outside. Once set up we would have to leave the classroom every hour to mark our time in the yard. The benefit of this lesson is the follow-up over the coming weeks and months even with the discussion of losing the hour for winter time.