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Consider how many Songs / Poems /Art can you think of to connect us with the Night Sky? For example: Look up President Michael D Higgins’ “Stardust”
I think that this idea of linking the night sky through songs/poems and art that the children may already be familiar with is a great idea. It will get them thinking of songs and lyrics that they might already be familiar with and will be able to suggest many more that I may not have thought of myself.
There has been lots of interest in the night sky over the past few years with the prevalence of the Northern Lights, children in Ireland have become used to looking to the night sky, particularly during the winter months.
Poems:
The Stolen Child- W.B. Yeats
The Moon- Robert Louis Stevenson
An Ghealach
Music:
The Star of the County Down
Shepherds Moons- Enya
Harvest Moon- Neill Young
Sky Full of Stars- Coldplay
Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles
Rocketman – Elton John
Stargazing – Myles Smith
Counting Stars – One Republic
What a Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong
Art Ideas:
Solar-Tri spirals at Newgrange (3rd class history)
Starry Night scratch art- Vincent Van Gough
How you would incorporate the needs of nocturnal species, especially those that rely on dark skies into school biodiversity plans
Incorporating nocturnal species into our Green-Schools Biodiversity Plan shifts the focus to Ireland’s “night shift”—like Pipistrelle bats, hedgehogs, and moths—proving that our school grounds need protection even after the home bell rings.
First, the class will plant a “Moon Garden” area using pale, night-scented native plants like Evening Primrose, Honeysuckle, and Jasmine. Because moths rely on scent and moonlight rather than bright colours, this creates a great nocturnal pollination zone right in the school grounds.
Second, the children will act as design engineers to support our local bats. Using data from our school yard light audit, they will map out a permanent “Dark Zone” completely shielded from harsh security lights. In this dark corridor, they will install student-built rough-timber bat boxes, ensuring a precise 20mm entry slot at the base to keep predators like magpies out.
Finally, we’ll create a “Hedgehog Highway” by asking the caretaker to leave 13cm gaps at the base of our perimeter fences so small mammals can forage safely. We’ll pile native logs in the dark corner to breed beetles for their midnight feast.
To track our success, we’ll set up an infrared trail camera, letting the children safely spy on our thriving night-time ecosystem right from the classroom interactive whiteboard.
I love the idea of planting a specific area for night pollinators. This is a new concept to me and one that I think would be very interesting to investigate.
Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
I live in rural Kilkenny and teach in a local school. In recent years it has become more difficult to observe the night sky due to light pollution. This is due to spread of city lights, LED street lights, floodlighting of local GAA pitches etc.
Some of the children in my class live in the village and others in the local countryside. I would get them to observe the night sky on clear nights outside their houses. They could take photos of the sky and email them so that we look at them on the whiteboard and may be able to compare and contrast.
I could register the class for a global citizen science project like ‘Globe at Night’ During our designated morning moon observation week, I will set a night-time homework task. Children will head into their back gardens or local estates, look up at a specific constellation (like Orion or Ursa Major), and match what they can see against a series of visibility charts (the Bortle Scale). They will log their local light levels using a simple app, mapping out the contrast between rural areas like Gowran and the Kilkenny City.
They could then further investigate light pollution by asking any relatives who live in big cities to share photos, also relatives who may live in a less light polluted part of Ireland (west coast).
Hi Niall,
I like the idea of comparing a rural and urban area. It will open the children’s eyes to the idea of light pollution and will lead to much discussion as they compare different areas.
Plan to observe the Moon – which phase of the Moon is best for observing in the morning from school? What dates will that be in 2026-2026?
first ting in the morning is the best time to observe the moon when in school. this is because the moon is high up in the sky at this time.
The best moon phase for a morning look is the Waning Gibbous heading into the Third Quarter. The Waning Gibbous rises late at night and stays hanging high in the western sky well into the morning. It looks like a fat, bright, half-eaten biscuit, which stands out brilliantly against a blue daytime sky. As it ticks over to the Third Quarter, it stays up even later, making it really easy to spot during small break or a quick trip out to the yard.
The 2026–2027 School Year Morning Windows when the moon will be well positioned in the sky are as follows:
2026 Term
September: 1st – 5th and 28th – 30th
October: 1st – 4th and 27th – 31st
November: 25th – 30th
December: 24th – 29th
2027 Term
January: 23rd – 28th
February: 21st – 26th
March: 23rd – 28th
April: 21st – 26th
May: 21st – 26th
June: 19th – 24thThe Moon is at its biggest and brightest during the first few days of this window. It’s much easier for the children to pick out against the daylight than the thin little crescent it turns into a few days later.
I really like the idea of each group taking a different planet to make a fact guide about. This will lead to great talk and discussion and children will learn lots about all the planets as they listen to other group’s presentations
Plan how your students could “observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day”
First, for homework, the children will sketch a local horizon line in their science copies, marking an X where the sun rises and sets against nearby houses or hills. Further to this they could watch the sun over the weekend while they are at home and track how it moves across the sky line throughout the day.
To track the sun’s movement safely, we’ll measure shadows in the school yard, linking them to the sun’s changing position in the sky.
During the school day, groups will plant a 30cm wooden ruler into a heavy block of clay on a sunny patch of tarmac. At three key intervals—just after morning roll (09:30), right before big break (12:30), and just before home time (14:45)—the children will head out with chalk and metre sticks. They’ll trace the stick’s shadow, write the time at the very tip, and measure its length in centimetres.
Back inside, we’ll map the data onto a Maths chart. By spotting how the morning shadow was long and pointed West, shrank to its shortest length pointing North at lunchtime, and stretched out toward the East by afternoon, the class can clearly deduce that the sun arcs across the southern sky from East to West.