[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Hollie,

Welcome to the course and it is great to hear your feedback on Activity 3 Climate Reporters.

I agree that the Paxi video gives a clear child friendly explanation of the concept of greenhouse gases. This can be followed by exploring the rising temperatures using the Teal Tool. With the current temperatures in Europe this summer, the tool will allow the learners to look at temperatures in the future too.

I think it is a great idea to provide a glossary as there is lots of specific vocabulary in the video. A glossary would be a great scaffold for your learners. I also like how you are planning to make posters and create a plan to encourage the learners to take action themselves at home, in school and in their community. As you have said it would make the actions meaningful and deepen their understanding of climate change.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the other modules in this course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Yvonne,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for your feedback on the Day and Night lesson.

I agree that the orange activity is very effective in exploring day and night across the planet and drawing the equator and adding detail such as the continents would allow the learners to make connections between places they know and how their day and night times are different to ours.

I really like how you plan to extend the learning by creating a sundial and as you have mentioned the activities lead to a rich, authentic STEM learning experience which allows for skills development and outdoor learning.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Clodagh

Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your plan to observe the moon.

I like how you plan to introduce the topic through story initially and explore what the learners already know. This may also address the misconception that the moon is only out at night.

I like how you are creating a class Moon Diary to record their observations and it is a great idea to take photos too to compare their drawings with the photos. As you have said it is a simple but enjoyable task to learn about the moon and would be very engaging for the learners.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Brónah,

Welcome to the course. I agree that this would be a lovely activity at the beginning of the year when getting back into the homework routine.

Using Stellarium is a great support to guide the learners in their observations at home and you could also consider sending the link home to allow the learners and their parents to explore it before their own observations.

A 4 week period would allow for lots of different observations in different weather conditions, as you have said it is a lovely activity to promote and encourage curiosity about the night sky while also allowing for skills development. Thanks for sharing, O hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Louise,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for your contribution across the other modules also.

I like your plan to encourage the learners to observe the night sky at home and photographs allow for comparison and critical thinking as they compare the photos from the different areas such as rural or more urban and built up. This would allow for lots of discussion and as you have said it gives the learners the opportunity to be real investigators of the night sky. I like how you plan to extend the learning with the digital tools such as the light pollution map. This will allow for further investigation into light pollution and as you have said it will allow for lots of curiosity and gives the learners the opportunity to make connections between their learning and real life experiences.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the other modules in the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Coral,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for your contributions to the course modules so far.

Space Week is an ideal opportunity to observe and learn about the moon. And as it falls in the third quarter moon phase it is a good time for observation during the day and address the misconception that the moon is only out at night as you have said. I also agree that allowing the learners to go out and observe themselves is more engaging than reading from a book.

Stellarium is a great resource to explore the night sky and the phases of the moon. As you have said it is a simpbe but effective activity and will encourage the learners to look up and notice things in the night sky for themselves.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the other modules in the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Aideen

Welcome to the course and thanks for the contributions to the other modules so far.

It is great to have a local park adjacent to the school as it is a fantastic opportunity to learn about biodiversity and nature. It is interesting that the tidy towns have reported on the biodiversity needs of the park and the impact from the light pollution. I agree that this is a fantastic opportunity to bring this local community initiative into the classroom and get the learners involved in learning about light pollution initially and then exploring how they could take action and solve the lighting issue.

Great idea, I hope the local community can resolve the lighting issue. Thanks for sharing.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Cristina,

Well done on completing all the modules in the course and thank you for all your contributions across the different modules.

I liked how you planned to introduce the sundial activity through a problem solving task. This would be very engaging for the learners. I also liked how you were planning for different tasks at home such as the Naas Night Sky Audit to raise awareness about light pollution and building on this with an engineering task in the classroom.

You have shared a lovely list of poems songs and stories to explore the night sky. I must add some of the stories to my own list. Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoyed the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Lianna,

Thank you for all your contributions across the modules of the course. You have shared different ideas to respond to the different activities in the course. I like how you plan to use digital tools such as book creator when recording the observations of the sun. You could consider using Stellarium in the class to prepare and support learners for the night time observations of the planets.

You are fortunate to have bird feeders around the school and using this to introduce the bioidversity in the school grounds. You could consider the different habitats in the school grounds, whether trees or grass etc, depending on the area of your school and discuss the different insects and nocturnal animals in the local area too. This would then lead to the discussion on light pollution you have outlined above. I like how you plan to create posters to raise awareness and then encourage the learners to take action.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoyed the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Grainne,

Well done on completing all the modules in this course. Thank you for all your contributions across the modules and offering an insight into planning for a multi grade classroom from infants to second. You have clearly outlined how you would adapt the activities to ensure engagement from the different classes. I like how you planned a display on the Autumn Sky in Module 2 for the learners to all show their work together.

I like how you are planning for collaboration across the different classes in creating their own Dark Sky Place  and presenting it to others. This also allows the learners to consider different actions they could take to reduce light pollution. As you have said this makes the project purposeful and allows the learners to make changes within their school environment.

Thank you for all your contributions, I hope you enjoyed the course.

 

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Bébhinn

Well done on completing the course and thank you for your contributions across the different modules. You have shown how you could adapt the activities relevant to the junior and senior infants class. I like how you plan to engage with the different tasks through playful learning opportunities such as the sun dial and with picture books also.

I like how you are linking the dark sky to Halloween and exploring Irish traditions and folklore. This is ideal timing with the clocks changing and the dark evenings. This would also give the learners the opportunity to reflect on their work on the moon and light pollution and consolidate it all. Great ideas, thanks for sharing. I hope you have enjoyed the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Shane,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your reflection on Liston’s paper and your approach in your own class. It is great that you can work on coding with your learners and provide for lots of skills development in coding. While I have used tutorials, it is an area I need to work on myself.

STEM is integrated and this is represented in our new STEM Specification. As you have said, you will now work on more design based projects to develop engineering and problem solving with a purpose. As you have said the learners will often be more engaged and will understand things better when they are in the process of testing predictions, investigating and problem solving with their peers.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Anna,

Welcome to the course. Thanks for sharing your lesson ideas which focus on the infant classes. Play based learning and exploration, while it is an approach for all classes now, is an effective one for STEM in infants. As you have said, there are lots of opportunities to explore sound and light in free play initially and then explore it further in discrete lessons. Visuals would also be very engaging for the infants and I like how you plan to introduce the telescope to them with images and then allow them to show their learning in different ways such as creating their own pictures and using simple vocab as responses to the lesson.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the course.

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Kevin,

Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your lesson ideas on map making. I really like how you plan to explore the placenames in the local area first and link with logainm.ie. I have done this previously and it adds to the maps when they are exploring the meaning of the Irish name and what is around the area. I taught in an area where there were lots of ‘Ráth’ in place names and my class recognised the link to fairy forts. It provided for lots of discussion and connections to other place names too.

It is a lovely way to explore the local area and maps of the local area, thanks for sharing. I hope you enjoy the other modules in this course.

 

[Michelle Mannix]

Hi Siobhan

Welcome to the course. It is great to hear your thoughts on Liston’s paper and how this is reflected in the new STEM Curriculum Specfication.

It is great to hear you liked the activities in this module also. Activity 1 is very useful, as you have said, to address the concepts and highlight the differences. I like how you plan to extend the learning with the learners writing their own sentences, this would really demonstrate their own learning for assessment purposes.

Checking the temperature in the classroom every day at the same time will be a challenge and possibly even become a reminder on the phone, (after the roll call alarm) Recording the temperature and gathering the data is very engaging for the learners and would allow for real life connections when covering data in the class. As you have said, they would need to have the knowledge of averages and creating graphs to fully engage.

Thanks for sharing, I hope you enjoy the other modules in this course.

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