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It is evident that there is more awareness around sustainability in my school’s local area. The parents of the community have been working on a bottle recycling scheme both on the school grounds and in the community. There are also parent volunteers who pick litter in the green fields outside the school grounds. There is definitely an increase in electric cars in the staff carpark. There is a designated bottle bank and clothes bank in the community.
In our school we have an excellent green school team that promote sustainability on a daily basis, conducting surveys, making observation notes and highlighting to the other students how we can do better. We installed more bike racks on our school grounds last June and there is an increase in the amount of students walking and cycling to school. We have student volunteers at every yard time who are “litter pickers”. All our students bring home their finished hot lunches to be recycled at home.
This year students were also involved in using recyclable materials to create and design robots, bridges and famous buildings and landmarks as part of their STEM projects.
There is also a new makerspace zone where the STEM ambassadors collect recyclable materials to assist classes with their STEM projects.
What a lovely idea to work alongside the Tidy Towns committee. This would be such an amazing experience for the students aswell as providing pupil voice for the Tidy Towns committee!
I think that it is crucial for us as educators to highlight the importance of the nutrition of seafood and how it is an excellent source of vitamin D, iron and omega 3.
When introducing the topic to the children I think it would be interesting to draw attention to the affects on the human body, when it is deprived of vitamin D and iron. From this I would move on to discussing the brain foods that really help brain development. The children could create sketches of these foods and create a display in the classroom so that they could visualise it every day.
I really like the idea of asking the children to do a reflection on how often their family eats seafood and the various types of seafood they eat.
By incorporating maths and sphe, students would look at the labels associated with seafood nutrition. This could be a groupwork activity where the students have to decipher if the seafood was organically farmed thus encouraging them to think about sustainability and where the food we are eating is coming from.After observing the content from this module and studying the online resources for the ARC, it is clear that Aquaculture education is cross curricular and multidisciplinary. It actually extends beyond the typical and traditional STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths to include history, geography, visual arts, environmental awareness and global citizenship. The online lessons enable the students to engage in 21st century skills, igniting learners curiousity so they can participate in real world problems thus encouraging pupil voice and discussion,developing creative and critical thinking skills which would enable the students to build and apply their knowledge. It enables the students to become responsible citizens as they “feel” involved and play an important role in becoming agents of change.
From a SSE perspective, staff could embed the online resources for the ARC into the 5th or 6th class STEM plan, then secure a visit from a guest speaker from BIM and book the ARC truck experience to visit the school.
I like your idea of bringing the children on a visit to the local fish farm and inviting a fish farmer from the oyster farm to come into the school as a guest speaker. This would really bring the curriculum “alive” to the children and they would become more involved and engaged from the very start.
I think these are lovely ideas Michaela and very closely linked with Greenschools . I think the eco map ties in nicely with mapping in geography and I love the way you want to link local action with classroom activities. I think that by doing this, your students will feel more involved and become agents of change.
Hi Michaela, I love your ideas about food tasting and creating posters about brain foods. I think that children would become very aware of foods that are good and nutritious for our brains and for brain development if they did this task/ activity.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Aquaculture farms are mainly located along the west and south west coast of Ireland , where the inlets and bays are sheltered and protected.</p>
I have uncles who work in aquaculture farms in Clew Bay and West Cork and I have seen first hand the benefits that these farms have on the local communities. As well as providing direct employment such as fishing, fish farming, divers, marine biologists, there are also many other job opportunities available as a result of the aquaculture farms e.g marketing the fish products, event managers for seafood festivals, educators , engineers for development of infrastructure.The addition of these aquaculture farms have created a boost to these rural communities providing awareness and knowledge of sustainability, education around what we eat, improvements in infrastructure , marketing of seafood festivals and products thus bringing everyone together and creating opportunities to develop a love and respect for community values.
I agree Michaela, aquaculture provides huge opportunities for people and their livelihoods in rural areas right across Ireland. (E.g Donegal, west Cork etc)
It provides ample opportunities for employment as well as educating the young children from the communities about it’s core values and it’s purpose.
After studying and observing the content from Module 1, I think that we as teachers have the perfect opportunity to help children discover and learn about the importance of aquaculture and how it affects environmental, economic and social systems.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Learning about these topics helps students identify where their food comes from and also helps them to think about the environmental and social responsibilities linked to food production.</p>
Our 6th class students were fortunate to experience the immersive nature of the ARC truck and they gained so much from the day. They could see first hand how their actions as citizens have a direct impact on the world around us.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>By providing opportunities to examine social licence, we are enabling our students to become more empathetic, aswell as, increasing their awareness of sustainability. The students will become more aware and more involved with what is happening in their locality, thus promoting responsible citizenship .</p>
I think , moving forward, as I know there is a waiting list for the ARC truck experience, it would be great to have BIM speakers visit schools to talk about aquaculture ,especially to the schools in urban areas. It is amazing to see how the students from these inner city schools respond . I know in our school we had many children who wanted to become marine biologists after a guest speaker from BIM visited us for Science week. To see their reaction after touching the scallops that they had just watched from real footage on the IWB, was a moment I will never forget.I agree Michelle and I think that we as teachers have the perfect opportunity to help children discover and learn about the importance of aquaculture and how it affects environmental, economic and social systems.
By providing opportunities to examine social licence, we are enabling our students to become more empathetic, aswell as, increasing their awareness of sustainability. The students will become more aware and more involved with what is happening in their locality thus promoting responsible citizenship.
My school is based in the Dublin 15 area so I would base my investigation on the local engineer Anne-Marie Holmes, who is a leader within Intel Ireland in Leixlip. She is a prominent engineer and was appointed vice president for Intel’s technology and manufacturing group in 2016. Her role makes her a highly significant figure in engineering in the D15 region particularly within the technology and manufacturing sector.
I think that is is also important to highlight the role of female engineers in our world today. We were involved in a program last year run by PWC called “Tech we can” and this programme really inspired our 6th class girls and it showed them the endless opportunities that girls have in jobs in engineering & technology.
For this lesson I would start by introducing Anne- Marie Holmes to the class. I would organise a live conversation/interview with Anne Marie via Teams on the IWB so that the children could ask her questions about her role in engineering and technology. We would discuss what happens inside Intel and organise a visit to observe the systems at work inside Intel in more detail.
We would then, in groups, be ready to participate in the Intel mini scientist competition using our own investigations Each group would have to use what they observed from Anne Marie Holmes interview, their observations on their visit to Intel, to come up with a project/investigation for the competition. Judges from Intel ( as part of the program) would then come to visit the class and question the groups on their work.
Such a rich and imaginative setting to use for your children. I love the area around Bunratty and even the history of the bridge and the story behind dirty Nellys pub could hold so much interest for the children . I really like your idea of including drama and I think some children would get the opportunity to really show their talents in this area.
I would introduce the oldest Bridge in Ireland (Trim) as our main focal point.
Our school is located 20minutes away and many of our children have visited the castle in Trim.We could easily get a bus to Trim and take some pictures of the bridge on the school ipads. We would learn about the history of the local bridge. A local historian from Trim could be invited into the class to talk about the bridge and it’s purpose. We would then discuss how bridges work outlining the importance of structure, materials etc.
We would discuss the role of engineers in particular civil engineers and learn about basic bridge types (beam, arch, suspension, etc).Following this the children would work in groups where each child would take on the role of engineers, architect and quantity surveyor.
Within these roles and working as a group the children would have to
-sketch their own bridge design inspired by Irelands oldest Bridge.
-consider what materials they would use (lollipop sticks, cardboard, string, etc.).
-think about scale and stability and cost factor of materials used to produce the same outcome.
Groups would then present their bridge models to the class.
Bridges will be tested for strength and students reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and how they’d improve the design in the future.Each group will be availing of their 21st century skills throughout this project aswell as observing the important role that engineering , maths & design play in our world in our past, present and future.
I love your idea of using the old mill to get some real historical accounts of what it’s purpose was in the past- this provides such wonderful storytelling opportunities. Wouldn’t it be great to invite one of the children’s parents/grandparents to visit the school and talk to your class about their memories of the old mill.
