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HI Amy,
I think its a great idea to pick a city in another country as a class and monitor their weather over a period of time and compare it.
Hi Sean, i think the research question is fantastic as due to it being about their locality it takes the children’s attention straight away. you could also have the children interview their parents and grandparents bout the obvious visible weather changes they see since they were younger .
For my lesson, I will have the students track rainfall in our area for a month. I would begin by discussing why rain is important in the locality and who would have a keen interest in how much rain will fall in the area.
We would discuss what we call people that measure it and why.
We would learn that meteorologists track rain for several big reasons that affect our daily lives and kit is very important for:
Water Management: Cities need to know if reservoirs are filling up or getting too low.
Farming: Farmers rely on rain tracking to know when to plant/harvest crops or take animals in or leave them out.
Tracking Climate Change: By looking at rain data over 30 years or more, scientists can see if an area is becoming a desert or experiencing heavier, more dangerous storms than it used to.
After this then we would look at tracking the rainfall in our area.
In this lesson each student will learn how to :
1. Build a rain gauge.
2. Read a rain gauge and record data.
3. Present data on a graph.
4. Analyse and comment on their findings.
As part of this we would build our own rain gauge and track the rainfall each day at the same time. We would record the amount of water each day. When the month has finished we would draw a graph to represent the data.
What I would also like to do is look at rainfall in another part of the country and compare the rainfall there. From this I would encourage the children to research why there is less or more rainfall there.
It is crazy to think that all these satellites are over our heads and we have no idea they’re there or what they’re doing. Also surprised that the Russian defence ministry satellite is overhead.
I really like the activities in the Nose Up High resource booklet.
In activity one a teacher could generate interest in the weather by discussing different weather proverbs. This generated discussion can be a great introduction to the topic of the weather. I teach in a rural setting so we can discuss why the weather is so important to us as individuals and to different people in the locality. I would then break the class into groups and ask them to identify different proverbs and present them back to the class. I would finish up with a class discussion on the different proverbs and whether we think they are valid.
Activity 2 is a great lesson that so simple but so effective. It allows children to interpret the weather themselves by using their different senses. In classroom setting we can identify the different senses we use to analyse the weather. It is also a nice way to introduce new language to the students. I would then look at the forecast and create a discussion with the children if it was accurate.
Activity 3 is a great activity following on from 1 and 2 that the whole class will enjoy. I really like the fact that following on from 2, we are now showing the class how to analyse the weather and have real life data to discuss. I really like the progression from activity 1 to 2 to 3 and think the children will be actively engaged in the lessons.
Home is a great choice for the classroom. It has great aerial footage from all over the world showing a birds-eye view of how deeply interconnected our planet’s systems are
It starts by showing the beauty of the world and how delicate it is. This is crucial because pupils need to love and understand the earth before they can care about its disruption.
I really like how it shows the link between actions in one part of the world and the effect on another.
I would follow on from using this video by having the class work in groups to focus on possible solutions—like wind farms, solar energy, protecting local parks and everyone doing their bit so they leave the lesson feeling empowered rather than anxious.
HI Elspeth,
I totally agree with you in relation to Greta Thunberg. I think many people think that they have no power to impact on climate change. By showing the children the video of Greta would definitely give them belief that they too can be influential in slowing down climate change.
Hi Grainne,
I think it is a great idea of incorporating technology and into the lesson. I really like the idea of using the apps as art of the lesson. You could also have a tracker of watching how accurate the apps are from different lengths of time.
Hi Sean, I really like having them work in group to represent the data in words, sentences and pictograms. I especially like the the presentations being done like a weather report. This will help the children identify the link between global warming and the weather we experience
I think activity three used in tandem with the video is a fantastic use of both resources together. Following on from module 1 it is also a proper authentic STEM lesson, hitting all the STEM aspects in the one lesson. I like the way it bridges the gap between a conceptual video and concrete, data-driven critical thinking. By pairing a video on the greenhouse effect with a climate projection chart, you move students from understanding the mechanism to analysing the consequences.
If I was to do this lesson in my classroom, my main objective would be for Students to be able to explain how greenhouse gases cause global warming and use climate projection data to predict and analyse future temperature shifts, and identify the implications these shifts may have for their future.
I would do this by first having the children study history to get a baseline weather temperature and then track the temperature increase over the years and impacts it has on the world. Finally looking at the predicting a possible future temperature. These results would be graphed out then to have a god visual representation of the increase over the period of time. We would finish with the effects of this and what we can do the sloe down or reverse the trend.
Liston argues that we are labelling almost anything as STEM at the moment. From my understanding if anything falls under the, science, technology, engineering or maths umbrella, we immediately move to label it as STEM. Instead she argues that true STEM is interdisciplinary and allows for innovation and critical thinking, while creating relevant learning experiences for students that inspire creativity, problem solving inquisitive thinking, and teamwork.
She poses a strong question, whether our students are actually participating in true, authentic STEM, or if they are just doing traditional science or technology activities.
I think Liston views engineering as the core concept in STEM. She sees engineering as the glue that holds the STEM concept together. Science and Math may pose a problem but it is through engineering that new technology can be created or used to solve a problem.
To be honest before reading this piece, I thought I did STEM properly but on reading this I think I fall into the category of doing one of the traditional activities in science, maths, engineering or technology and labelling it as STEM.
After reading this piece I will now try to remove the barriers and create a lesson that go past the teaching of general knowledge in a subject area to try to build critical thinking, more problem-solving and collaboration in the classroom.
I really like activity one as it create a discussion on weather and climate and by using dates that important to the children it immediately grabs their interests.
One part I would also use is children’s holidays. Young children love to talk about their holidays. I would ask them about the weather there and then lead onto whether it was the weather or climate.
Activity 2 immediately appears to be a good STEM lesson to me because it is interdisciplinary lesson which I can now see I need to do more of in the coming year.