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Students will learn about William Parsons the 3rd Earl of Ross and his astronomical discoveries through a PowerPoint presentation. They will learn that he could not take photographs of what he saw through his great telescope. So he had to hand draw everything using charcoal as the use of a regular lamp would have affected his night vision making it difficult to move quickly from the telescope to the page to document what he was seeing. Then he had to develop his red lamp for light to keep his eyes adjusted to the darkness. This will end the theory part of the lesson.
Then I would get the students to make their red lamps using jars, red cellophane and electric tea lights. This would be followed by the students drawing their spiral galaxies using charcoal and tea-stained paper that looked like parchment. When the students have completed their art pieces they can go onto the artist chair and show all the other students in their class what they made. The other students can also ask them questions at this stage.
I would show my class pictures of Birr Castle Demesne suspension bridge as a prompt. These pictures, will lead to the students asking questions such as what makes a good bridge. Next, the students can be placed into groups in which they are going to work together to make the bridge. They will be told that they are going to design several different bridges and the distance of using two sheets of A4 paper is used to get the students thinking about the importance of shape in the construction of bridges. In addition, students can look at how some shapes such as triangles and arches are stronger than others and how this knowledge can be used in the construction of these bridges. Teachers can set the criteria for the students to meet when constructing their bridge. Students will make their bridges. Once the groups have finished constructing their bridges they will be asked to evaluate their work and present their work to the class.
The Biodiversity project that my class would work on would be birds. I would use the notes from this module to help me with the project. The students would be given the task to make a bird feeder in groups. The project would start when we go back to school. First the students will be given a prompt which would be the book ‘Robby the Christmas Robin’ and we will discuss it. Next, this will lead to a discussion on the different types of birds that come to our school. So we will go outside and take a walk and see what birds we have. The students will record this on an observation sheet. Each group will be given a different bird box to make based on the type of bird given to them. Students will make the bird box together. The learning would be outside as much as possible as we have an outdoor classroom but it would depend on the weather as it’s not enclosed. The subject areas that would be integrated would be English, SESE and art.
I would plan and conduct a lesson plan on map making with the junior classes by showing them a prompt first. I would go onto google maps and use the satellite view of the school grounds. I would zoom in and out and show the students how the level of detail changes and have a discussion on this. Then I will show the class a picture of what I want them to make.
Next I would have a discussion with the class in advance as to what they expect to see on our walk around the school grounds. I would ask them for example what do we know about our school already.
Then all of the class will go on a walk around the school grounds and observe it all.
Children will be put into groups and they will map a particular area of the school. Guidelines need to be set with the class at the start so they don’t break twigs off trees, pick flowers or take stones from an area.
Students will gather their materials.
Students will create their maps.
After students have created their maps they will present them to the teacher and the rest of the class.
Lesson plan: Making a telescope with 5th and 6th class students
Items needed:
2 different focal lengths 5cm and 20cm both with a 5cm diameter. Both lenses for each group in the class.
Planning:
Teacher will show the class a video on the ‘Great Telescope’ and use it as a stimulus. Groups need to think about what they have discovered about lenses and about the telescope design and what they would use the telescope for. Then they will draw a plan of the telescope on paper.
Conducting the investigation:
Groups will make their telescope. Groups will need to work out the diameter of the two cylinders that will each hold a lens and also fit into each other. They will also need the correct spacing of the lenses before assembling their telescopes. If students are having difficulty it is best to wait until they ask for help rather than stepping in without the students asking.
Results:
Groups need to evaluate their own work and the teacher can ask them what went right with their design rather than what went wrong.
We have implemented sustainable practices within our school such as having an outdoor classroom that we bought this year and a big school garden. One of the AP2 posts specialises in gardening where the member of staff has to design activities for classes to do in the outdoor classroom associated with the school garden. Every Friday we have a gardening teacher who comes in and spends 2 hours with a class to complete gardening tasks. The produce we have in the garden is sold every Friday by the students outside the school gate.
I think this can be expanded through SPHE and SESE by asking questions to students such as how could you be sustainable in your every day life, how can you contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, what labels should you look out for in a shop to know you are buying sustainable food and finally what groups can practice sustainability in your local area and how are they doing this.
Hello Grainne
I love how your school is so sustainable which I feel is so important. These are great ideas and I would love to share these ideas with our staff. Thank you.
Seafood is a wonderful source of nutrition as it contains protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and amino acids. In particular it contains omega 3 fatty acids, iron and vitamin D. I think it is important to let students know how good seafood is for them. They need to know that seafood is found in the protein layer of the food pyramid. Protein is important for muscle growth and development.
In order to show students how nutritional seafood is they could be put into pairs with an iPad and they can find pictures of seafood products and their nutritional information. When the students find these products online they can identify what labels and certificates they can see on them. It can be made into a little game where the students have to work in their pairs to find the seafood with the highest protein, vitamin D, fats, carbohydrates and iron content for example.
Hello Azora
This is a great guide. Thank you for posting the link. I will be showing this to my students in September.
The online ARC lessons and resources provide a great range of topics that I can see my class loving. It is great to have the use of these and I plan on using these next year. Since I have done this summer course it would be great to take this new understanding that I now have on Aquaculture and to share it with staff at a Croke Park meeting for something different. I would encourage the staff to use the ARC lessons and resources in the senior classes and to arrange for the ARC to come and visit our school. I would also consider establishing a Marine or Aquaculture team in our school and to look at the possibility of obtaining a Blue Schools Award as we don’t have that award yet. I would love to go into more detail on carrying out group classroom projects on marine species that we did last year.
Hello Michelle
I would never have thought about using the Salmon of Knowledge story and teaching it in a cross curricular way. Thank you for such a great idea. I will use this with my class next year.
Unfortunately I have very little knowledge on aquaculture. However, this module highlighted that the west coast is where aquaculture takes place in Ireland due to its easy access to ports/harbours/inlets and other features along the shores coastline which makes complete sense.
It was interesting to learn that Atlantic salmon is placed along the west coast of Ireland because most of the Atlantic Ocean coastline has deep water and is easy to reach because there are many piers and harbours. These salmon farms need shelter from storms as they need to be tucked in behind islands to be facing the Atlantic Ocean. Hence the west coast of Ireland is an ideal area for salmon farms for these reasons stated above.
Aquaculture farms contribute socio-economically to coastal communities as they provide people with a lot of job opportunities in the area. These jobs are particularly valuable in rural and remote areas where employment opportunities can be limited. Then this money would be more than likely spent locally by employees and people who are visiting the farms.
