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Hi Edel, lovely to have you on the forum. And lovely to hear you and your family like to look at the stars and pick out the planets. That enjoyment is so important and builds a connection between earth and the huge universe in which we live.
Welcome Tadhg! That’s a great fun fact. The ISS is so much brighter than any other satellite. You can ask the class why they think this is the case and enable them to think about size, reflection (black, white, silver) and even what causes the ISS to be bright (sunlight reflected off it). There are several apps and websites which allow you to get predictions of when it’s next over Ireland, so the kids can go out and see if (clouds permitting!).
Hi Sean, welcome to the forum. Venus is fast becoming the most popular planet on the forum. I thought it might be Mars, but not so!
Your lesson is a great example of inquiry-based approaches and ensuring the kids are involved in all stages will help build their confidence.
Welcome Anna. Thankyou for the fun space fact which is popular on the forum and which poses real limitations for communicating in space in the way we, and other animals, do on Earth. If we had evolved in space, you might ask your class how they think we might communicate if talking was impossible in the way we’re familiar with it.
I love your crater experiment. If you can stretch the activity to using paster of paris (or some equivalent) then you can make a permanent record of the different craters and display around the school.
Great to see that you’re linking the course contents and the broader contents on the ESERO website (many developed by our team at Blackrock Castle Observatory) into your classroom curricula.
Hi Camila and welcome to the forum! Thankyou for your fun space fact. The sun is indeed huge and very hot, so even though it’s very far away (as has been noted by several teachers) it still provides all the heat and light to our planet. Without it there would be no day/night, no wind, no rain, no plants, no animals. Without it the Earth would be permanently frozen, except for the odd volcano here-and-there to give some local heating. So it’s pretty important to us and for us!
Hi Sinead, that’s a lovely summary of the online space resources. Stellarium is great for chatting about the stars, what’s in the sky tonight (or next week, or next month, etc.). And it allows you to choose from different cultures, each of which has different stories about mythology and each has arranged the stars they see into constellations that are different to the ones we use (which are from Greece from about 2000 years ago). So you can use the stars to discuss lots more than just the stars themselves and what they are and how far away they are. Another example of bringing arts, humanities and social sciences into STEM conversations and vice versa.
Hi Irene. Perhaps a fun thing to consider would be that on the Moon the gravity is one sixth of that on earth, so hopping or jumping would be six times farther!
Hi Elaine, I think your point about the children learning about themselves and their communities is important. And hands-on activities that use the ESERO Framework in an appropriate format can bring in broader questions. For example, does your house design take account of the living beings we share our planet with? Such questions get kids discussing the broader implications of their ideas and shows that multiple voices, not just pure STEM voices, are needed to ensure we live in a sustainable world. You can also ask them to think about whether their approach would work on other planets. For example, the Moon is lifeless, so does that make some decisions easier as there’s no danger of upsetting habitats?
Hi Sarah, lots of great comments from other teachers! And a dream home might mean different things in different scenarios. For example, in a warm climate versus a cold one. And in space or on the Moon or Mars there are other challenges to what makes a dream home a dream home. For example, on the Moon your dream home couldn’t have open windows or all the air would rush out! And even on Mars the atmopshere is too thin (and mostly carbon dioxide and almost no oxygen) so architects would have to think differently than if building a house on Earth.
The integrated nature of this lesson is a really strong element of the approach. It helps to link different concepts together into an overall coherent narrative. “Multidisciplinarity”, where different disciplines such as scientists and artists and social scientists, work together collaboratively is a powerful use of STEM and SSE. This lesson gets the kids thinking along those lines early, which is great.
With a return to the Moon in the next few years, “where do you live” might mean something more expansive in the near future for those first lunar inhabitants. What advances might the kids think would need to be achieved to make it possible to live on the Moon? This approach can be used to show that many of the same ideas they have to consider when discussing habitation on earth is faced in space. And that’s useful because it reinforces that by using an inquiry-based approach you can address challenges wherever they come from.
Hi Lucy, this is a really strong reflection. I love the fact that you recognise that meaningful improvements comes from listening to, and integrating, the kids voices/experiences/interactions. This is not always easy, but it’s very powerful. Focusing on the process is also a key observation of yours, and moving away from “prescribed content” towards units/themes is progressive.
Lots of great ideas. Don’t forget you can also bring space into the discussion by using the ESA Kids lessons. And you can also get the kids to imagine a world in which it’s always cold or always hot and build lessons around hypothetical worlds that encourage the kids to imagine not only the worlds, but also the implications for life of living on those worlds.
Hi Sabrina, welcome and thanks for that new fun space fact. Without gravity pulling down on your skeleton, you do indeed grow taller. You can ask the kids if they think you’d be taller in space (no gravity), on the Moon (one sixth the gravity of earth) of on Jupiter (2.5 times more gravity than on earth). You can also ask whether aliens from a small planet would likely be shorter or taller than us and have a bit of fun with the kids imagination!