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Dia duit Dónal.
Fáilte go dtí an Cúrsa.
It is great to hear of your own efforts for the All Ireland pollinator plan and how you could consider developing this within your own school also. I think that a bee keeper coming into talk to the learners would be a fantastic opportunity and would also develop their understanding and connections between pollinators, bees and real-life scenarios.
Mapping the school grounds specific to pollinator friendly areas would also draw the learners attention to the concept of pollination and how they can support it and encourage the learners to take action such as the learners researching flowers to plant and where t0 plant them.
There is lots of learning opportunities in the activities you have suggested. Tá siúl agam go mbaineann tú taitneamh as an gcúrsa seo.
Hi Renee.
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the documentary Home. I agree that you should choose clips or excerpts that are suitable and relevant to your class. This would link with lessons or units of work in the class and allow for project work also.
I like how you are planning for activities such as climate reporters that allow for creativity and multiple ways for students to show their learning and also take action as they suggest sustainable actions for the school, at home or even in their local community. As you have said it is important to ensure the students can suggest meaningful ways to tackle climate change.
Hi Claire.
Welcome to the course, what a fantastic achievement for your class to be on the 10th Green Flag. Well done to all the learners in your school. It is great to hear that the Paxi video will be shared among school staff to support their teaching on this topic.
I agree that climate change can cause a lot of anxiety for some pupils. I have experienced this in my own class before too and the Paxi video is great as it focuses on the positive and encourages the learners, giving them hope.
It is a great idea to use a buddy system to explore the TEAL tool with 3rd class students. This will allow them to engage with the results and be suppported by older pupils. Lots of learning for the older pupils too in this task as they support the younger pupils in understanding the data. There are lots of opportunities to allow for extension of learning for some pupils too as you have said. Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Paul
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Paxi video. It is very engaging and informative and as you have said a great starting point for class discussions and to see what the learners know.
I like how you plan to use the TEAL tool to raise environmental awareness. The learners could explore their own local area on the TEAL tool and then compare it to other areas in the world that they are familiar with. This would also allow for exploration of the data and critical thinking.
I also agree that it is important to encourage the learners to be active participants and making lists of actions they can take at home, in school or in the local community would support this. I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Caoimhe.
Welcome to the course. I like how you have planned for STEM in your class, solving problems and allowing the learners to work together.
Thanks for your feedback on the activities. I agree that while the link to birthdays is a good example you could also consider events such as sports day to make links with their local area.
Setting up a weather stations offers so many learning opportunities for the learners and it is great that you intend to use it as a school weather station. It allows for lots of skills development as you have mentioned and also gives the learners real ownership of their learning as they record the data and share their work.
Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Miriam.
Welcome to the course. I agree that weather proverbs can allow for great discussion and links with local history as the learners can ask older relatives for more proverbs. It would encourage critical thinking as they make links between the proverbs and their relevance to the weather for some people such as farmers as you have said.
The activities in the resources can be easily adapted for your class level, while recording the temperature might be appropriate you could show them the anemometer and allow the learners to use it. This would also allow for the language development you have mentioned along with the activity on using the senses.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Aoibheann.
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your lesson idea. I agree that the video from Paxi is very engaging and presents the concept in a fun way. I like how you plan to record the location of the sun across the day, you could use landmarks in the school grounds for comparison such as basketball net, trees, even the school building itself. I agree that this approach encourages the learners to make meaningful connections with nature and the world around us and this makes the activities and learning exciting and memorable. I hope you enjoy the other modules in this course.
Hi Natalia ,
Welcome to the course. It is great that your school has lots of open space to allow for great learning from the sun dial activity. I agree that these activities allow for productive movement breaks too and opportunity for outdoor learning and exploring the changes on the hour. There are many links for meaningful integration as you have mentioned and I like how you plan to integrate it with the arts also.
Thanks for sharing and I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Rachel
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your thoughts on Liston’s paper. It does encourage us to reflect on our own teaching and whether we are allowing more curiosity-led investigations rather than following a worksheet as you have mentioned.
I like how you plan to investigate the sun’s position in the sky to incorporate maths by plotting results on graphs and developing this with digital graphs also. It encourages the learners to use maths in purposeful and real-life scenarios and as you have said real world application too. Many thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Paula
Welcome to the course. There has been lots of lovely ideas for map making shared in the forum and for your second class exploring the area around them and as you have mentioned going out on a walk with the class to collect items would be a great starting point. They could then create a 3D map such as the one on the video with Una in this module and then use this to design their own map on paper. As you have also mentioned it it’s important to show the pupils that maps can show the same place in different ways. Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Siobhan
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your ideas to plan observing the moon with the learners in your class. The Paxi video would introduce the learners to the concept of the phases of the moon prior to the observations. In my own class last year for Space Week they had a project and one option was to create a 3D model to explain the phases of the moon, there were some fantastic responses, really creative and it really showed what they has learned. The timeanddate.com is a great resource in helping you when to plan for these observations. I also really like how you plan to record their observations and their learning in a Moon Observation Log using photos or sketches.
Hi Rebecca
Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your teaching idea with the World Wide Telescope. While I haven’t used this resource, I have used Stellarium with my own class and they have been fascinated, some also went online at home to help them explore the night sky. I think both of these are a great resource to share with parents to engage them and support them in helping their children with night time observations. I think it is a great idea for the learners to send in photos of the night sky, or of them exploring the night sky to share with the class so they can show their observations and share their learning.
Hi Kathy
Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your plan to observe the sun’s movement in the sky. It is a great activity to get your learners outside and observing and noting specific details such as the sun’s location in relation to landmarks. You have mentioned using a compass and could consider naming the landmarks relative to their location such as the big tree in the east. Parents could also download a compass on their phone or device to help their child with this activity at home. I agree that a human sun dial would also be a great activity on the yard. I hope you enjoy the course.
Hi Brian
Welcome to the course. It is great to hear your feedback on the resources in this module. They do allow for a mixture of creativity, outdoor learning and science inquiry which is a great approach to engage all learners in our classrooms.
I agree that the learners would enjoy the activity to compare their ‘weight’ on Earth and on Mars which would also integrate well with Maths. I hope you enjoy the other modules and find the resources beneficial.
Hi Cian
It is important to elicit what the learners know about Climate Change as this may influence the clips or extracts from Home that you could show the pupils. I agree that it is important to highlight to the learners that they themselves could be active participants in change as you have said. A larger project could involve collaboration with other classes in the school to promote this also.
