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I grew up in a rural area and remember loving looking at the stars at night. I still love doing so when I go home for a family visit. I was shocked to see the growth in light pollution in Ireland from 1995 to 2015, its staggering and I can imagine it is only getting worse rather than better. I now live in Cork City and the light pollution is bad. It saddens me that my students have not seen the Milky Way. I discovered recently even some of my colleagues haven’t!
To entice students interest in the night sky I would explain to the students that I am a member of the Cork Astronomy Group and show them photos of the night sky taken by some of our members, they are incredible! I would then show some of the videos in this course to highlight how light pollution is the reason we can not see some of these incredible sights in the city.
Just like in the course, I would encourage the students to first create a map of the school, putting in the sources of light pollution. I would then extend this to include the school’s local area/town. We could write a letter to the local councilor with our map outlining our concerns and our want for shielded lights.
Those dates work out great for trying out some of the ideas we have got from this course. Using different sized balls would be a great idea to further discussion and understanding.
Constellations: I would combine a number of the ideas about the constellations.
- First, as a class, we would use Stellarium to find the plough, furthermore find polaris using the plough.
- I would challenge students to find both constellations at night with their parents too. Could they take a photo of it to add to our class constellation display.
- We would then build the plough model and observe how it looks different from different angles.
- Next, the students would design their own constellations, using either a peg board, strings and pins or just paper and pencil.
- Finally, the students would be grouped together where they would make the constellation planetarium. First they would add the plough and then each child would add their personal constellation. Groups would get the chance to look at other groups and see if they could firstly find the plough and then identify their friends personal constellations.
I love the idea of giving the students their own planet, this encourages deeper engagement. I would assign it for work at home the previous week but also give students time to research books in our school library and on the IPads too before we create our tubes. Students could be encouraged to create a mind map on what they learned so that after creating the tubes they could peer teach other other about their assigned planet.
Sundial:
To introduce the sundial topic I would explore the idea with the students that when the light source changes the shadow changes. The students can do this by using their own shadow. We would go outside in the morning and trace our shadow on the floor using chalk, then come back at break, lunch and home time to see what has happened to our shadow. I would then set up the stick and bucket as outlined in the video. We would mark the shadow and note the time every hour. If I had the permission of the principal I would make a more permanent one in our sensory garden where we would paint the time, and therefore we could use it all year round and it might entice students to make one at home where they could track the time at home after school! For the older classes I would send home the templates, but for the younger classes I think the bucket and stick would be easier and more engaging.
Showing videos of rocket launches is a great idea as especially over the next few years there will definitely be the opportunity to watch live launches via space X. I think this would really help engage the students and bring their learning in the classroom to life.
I have used the Aliens in Underpants story as a hook before and the students loved it. We then created an art lesson based on it where the students created their own underpants for an alien. This links in materials also, what materials should an aliens underpants be made of?
I will definitely be trying out the flying mice experiment next year. I have always wanted to create rockets with junior infants but didn’t know how to do it interactively and safely. I will definitely add this to our themed activities during our Aistear Space station. We could further develop it on how the different designed mice fly, keeping the same bottle launcher. Eg size, paper vs card, googly eyes or no googly eyes (weight)
In Junior Infants we have a six week block based on Space as part of our Aistear programme. I look forward to adding some of these activities into our planning.
Online resources: ESA kids has some great interactive games online that students can explore both with the teacher or independently
Investigations: The use of Vaseline to introduce how animals adapt to their environment would make for a very fun messy table explorative station
Story Time: Marvin and Milo are new characters we could introduce for story time.
I love the idea of freezing the animals in ice and then the students exploring how heat/sun will free them. The vaseline idea is a such a fantastic way to introduce animal modifications. I will definitely will be trying these out in Aistear next year.
The peg board idea for create your own constellation is a great idea, what a fun way to bring in motor skills into a space theme. I will definitely consider bringing it into an Aistear station next year!
The activity I would love to try out in my classroom is the stars activity, making the plough. I will suggest it for a project across all year groups during STEM week next year as it integrates science, maths and design so well. It would also make an incredible display in the hall corridors, as students can see as they ascend the stairs their view of the stars appear different. Orians belt could be another constellation that could be done. I believe using these two will engage the students as they can so clearly be seen at night. We could encourage students to even take night photos of the constellations to add to a STEM school display, could this be extended to a summer project, asking students who travel abroad to take photos of the plough from a different geographical location? Could you take photos of the consellation at different seasons?
The planet song has always been a great hit in my classroom. Last week I used the story bots to introduce our theme of space during our summer programme and the other teachers had never seen it before and were nearly bigger fans than the students! They are such an engaging way to teach difficult science!
Sun and ShadowsAn activity that I would like to explore in the classroom would be The Sun and Shadows as it is such a hands on activity and one the students could bring outside of the classroom, ie experiment with at home with their parents. As a homework assignment, can you trace your shodow when you get home from school and later again in the evening, discuss how it has changed.
In school it would be interesting to ask the students to trace your (teacher) shadow on the ground at 1pm in September (autumn) using paint, you could revisit the activity in Decemeber (winter) March (Spring) and June (summer). Question the students how has the shadow changed? Why has it changed?I love working with materials with the younger classes as it is so hands on and relative to their life. One inquiry lesson I would like to do after reading this module is waterproof clothing. Eg Class teddy needs to prepare himself for the wet Irish winter, what material would be the best. We would test how waterproof different materials are. But it would also open up discussions about flexible materials, cost effective materials for those students who would need to be challenged.
