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Hi Ellen,
Building bat boxes and badger houses is a fantastic idea. Seeing the badgers on your school camera must be delightful for the children and really engage them.
Hi Sarah,
That sounds like a really well thought out plan and activity. Involving the whole family on the star gazing brings a whole extra element of fun into the equation. I love the way you have integrated science, geography and digital literacy into this task. Well done!
Task 1. Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
Light Pollution is described as ‘the inappropriate or excessive use of artificial light.’
When lighting is used excessively, it disrupts wildlife, impacts human health, wastes money and energy, contributes to climate change, and blocks our view of the universe. In fact, it was stated in one of the video links that almost 80% of the UK population cannot see the Milky Way from their home.
I teach in an urban setting and most of the children have never experienced a truly dark sky.
To begin this topic in class, we would explore what is Light Pollution? What do we know about this topic? Children would be asked to go into their garden that evening, or outside their home and look up. (Probably late autumn, as the evenings get dark earlier). What can they see in the sky? Stars, planets, or even nothing? Children make a list of all the sources of light around them while they are outside, streetlights, shop lights, neon signs, traffic lights, house/ garden/sports centre lights etc. I would ask the children to upload a picture of each light source from their list to me.
The following day we can display what the children saw and using darksky.ie we can compare our findings with a sky in a more remote part of Ireland. What are the differences and why?
Children can work in small groups to discuss what changes can we make in our homes and school to make a difference and to lessen the impact of light pollution?The stellarium appears to be a fantastic resource. I was not aware of it but I think children of all ages would love using it. And it could be a great resource to share with parents too.
Task 3. Plan to observe the moon – which phase of the moon is best for observing in the morning from school? What dates will that be?
I think I would plan this activity to be ongoing over the month of October.
I would begin this task by asking the children to tell me what shape the moon is. Some children might suggest that the moon changes shape. We would need to explore this so that everyone understands that it only ‘appears’ to change shape. We would discuss why this is so.
Next, we would enjoy the video by Paxi explaining the lunar cycle. After this, we would explore the path of the moon by setting up an activity, following the instructions as laid out in the resource from Esero 62 (The Sun, Moon, Earth task), asking ourselves, can we see the moon / full moon in the daytime?
We will use ‘timeanddate.com’ to find the calendar cycle of the moon.
Once I am satisfied that everyone understands the lunar cycle, then each child will receive a moon observation log and keep a diary of the moon for the month of October.
We will finish the exercise by going to the yard together to observe the full moon on Nov 5th at 13.20. We can follow up with some lunar painting activities.
Hi Sarah,
This sounds like a fun activity, which the children would enjoy doing. Love the idea of their own sky diary.
Task 2. Construct a sundial in your immediate area or plan for your school grounds to see where a sundial could be placed.
I think constructing a sundial would be great fun for children of every age.
We would begin with a discussion about time and clocks. We would discuss how people from long ago measured time without watches/clocks, using hourglass and sundials. We would discuss what we know about shadows.
We would go outside into the school yard on a sunny day. Armed with our chalk, the children would get a friend to draw around their shoes and outline their shadow on the ground. They would write down the time above the shadow and the name of the child below the feet.
An hour later, we would return and standing with our feet in the same spot, have our shadow drawn again. We would repeat this over the course of the day, always writing the time above the shadow. At the end of the day, we will be able to see that the position and shape of our shadow changed as the position of the sun changed.
After this exercise we would discuss sundials and share what information we know about them. I would introduce the word ‘gnomon’ and explain it. We would discuss how we could make our own sundial, why is location important and what materials we would need. The steps outlined in the template 52 ‘The Sundial’ on Esero.ie are very clear and easy to follow and I would put these up on display, so the children can make their own paper/card sundials. Then we would head outside to enjoy using them!
