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Hi Eoghan
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your thoughts on these resources. Having senior classes myself, I have used the resources with my own class to explore the difference between weather and climate. The activity does allow for lots of critical thinking and discussion about weather and climate. Also, the activity allows for lots of opportunities to integrate with other areas and for children to work with real life data to create more meaningful learning opportunities. I hope you enjoy the course and enjoy using these resources with your class in September.
Hi Aine,
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the EO browser.
I like how you would use the EO browser to explore your own local area first and to compare the river over different times. This could lead to lost of exploration using the EO browser to become familiar with it. It will also integrate with Geography to explore the local area along with the changes in the river such as flooding, if it is becoming an issue. As you have mentioned, you could also explore the changes in a local town or city or other areas in the world as the pupils become more familiar with the tool.
I hope you enjoyed the course.
Hi Sinead
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your elevator pitch for the EO browser. It is a fantastic learning tool for pupils to explore real life images and up-to-date images of different areas to allow for comparisons of environmental changes.
Children can also explore different areas to make comparisons of the different areas and also the changes over time. It will also encourage more opportunities for critical thinking and reflection on the impact of these changes and what is needed to support climate action.
Hi Rachel.
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the lovely activities for the infants. I think if you could use your immediate environment such as trees to record the seasonal changes, it would be more concrete for the pupils in the class and they could make more meaningful connections between the seasons and themselves. Taking photos every month or so would also provide for digital record and allow the children to make regular comparisons from week to week or month to month.
I also like how you plan to explore seasonal changes in a variety of ways to support the thematic planning. Stories, songs and activities in the class will support their learning across the seasons in a busy infant classroom.
Hi Nicole.
Thanks for sharing these lovely ideas, there is such a contrast between those in the inner city and those living in the Dark Sky Reserve. So using visuals of these areas would really engage the pupils in thinking about their own dark sky place.
I really like how you plan to integrate it with Geography through maps and models of their dark sky places. This would allow the children to represent their work in a variety of ways and as you have mentioned would develop creativity and team work also.
I hope you enjoyed the course
Hi Christina.
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your thoughts on light pollution in your own area. As you live in close proximity to the town I’m sure you have seen an increase in the light pollution. I too live on the outskirts of a town and when the Northern Lights were visible here I couldn’t see them due to the excess lights from street lights and the town which was unfortunate.
It is important to explore these issues with the children and for them to explore options to reduce the light pollution in their area such as those you have mentioned – shielding outdoor lights and reducing unnecessary lighting in their local area or the school community.
Hi Monica,
Welcome to the course and thank you for sharing your ideas to explore the weight on different planets. I hope you will find lots of ideas in this course for your transition to 4th class next year.
It is important to use lots of visuals and videos to explore the concept of gravity and the difference of gravity depending on the size of the planet. By creating a variety of different planets the pupils can explore the weight on different planets through hands on exploration. It could also lead to some lovely project work on the different planets as you have mentioned. This is an ideal activity to link with Space Week from 4th to 10th October 2025.
Hi Catherine,
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the activity in this module.
It is a great idea to use specific times from the school day as a focus to explore the movement of the sun and to use the shed that the children probably see everyday but not necessarily look at the shadows. I think this would be a great focal point for observation and can easily be observed from the classroom. I also like how you plan to do this across the seasons to explore the movement of the sun during seasonal changes.
I hope you enjoy this course.
Hi Nicole,
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your thoughts on Liston’s paper. I agree that it is important to ensure you have meaningful connections and learning opportunities to enhance STEM.
I love tracing shadows with the children in the yard to track the movement of the sun and the change in shadows. It is an ideal opportunity for younger learners and also to reinforce the movement of the sun in different seasons for older classes. I think photos would be great to encourage a digital aspect and to allow for comparisons in more detail also.
Hi Lora,
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your ideas on creating maps in the classroom.
I think it is important to explore the children’s own knowledge of maps first as you have mentioned and even to have maps of parks, towns, shopping centres etc for them to explore initially before they develop their own map.
I really like how you plan to team up with the older pupils to explore maps and even to allow multiple means to create maps such as lego or on paper. So many meaningful learning opportunities for the pupils.
I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Diarmaid
Welcome to the course and thank you for sharing your thoughts on the film Home and other videos for use in the classroom. I agree that the imagery in the video is striking and depending on your own class group you can choose different clips to show in the class. The film could also be used to evoke empathy as you have said and encourage the pupils to come up with small changes they can make and encourage others to make and the importance of the combination of small changes to combat climate change.
Hi Louise,
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your ideas on the Paxi video from this module. I also like how you plan to differentiate the lesson for younger learners and to allow them to respond more creatively through making posters for reducing emissions. As you have said it will keep the message of climate action strong and clear. It is also a great way to explore the different approaches we can take ourselves and that every step taken counts. This may reduce the anxiety that children may have regarding climate change.
Hi Olive,
Welcome to the course and thank you for sharing your thoughts on exploring the night sky.
As you have mentioned, a clear night is essential to ensure there is limited cloud cover along with ensuring you are in a good location to explore the night sky.
Some planets will be quite visible to the naked eye depending on the time of year. Some planets may appear as a bright star, so it is important to know the location of the planets in the night sky prior to heading out. Stellarium is a fantastic resource which can show you where the planets will be in the night sky, you could explore this with the children prior to the activity.
Hi Colin,
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your ideas from this module.
I like how you plan to explore the weather in different curricular areas such as collecting data in maths and creating a weather and climate bulletin for the school to support and develop literacy.
As you have said there are many opportunities for skills development across these activities also to support STEM
Hi Elaine
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your ideas from this module.
I really like how you want to create a weather club in your school. This will allow children to take ownership of their learning and to share their information and data with others. I think that the weather is always topical but also with people such as Alan from Carlow weather, he is sharing his knowledge with everyone through social media, there seems to be more opportunities to explore weather and create weather instruments in the classroom now to link in with showing their work on Seesaw or other platforms.
It would be great to record data for a particular month this year and a different month next year, allowing for change of season also. This will also allow for comparison of data. There are so many meaningful learning opportunities within this idea. Thanks for sharing
