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Hi Emily, another great space fun fact! And Venus is also the hottest planet in the solar system. Would your pupils like to live there I wonder?
Hi Wendy. That’s a great fun fact. The speed of light is difficult to comprehend because it’s so fast. We always thought of it as travelling round the earth about 7.5 times!
The two lessons – “floating and sinking” and “moon phases” are great examples of how the same approach to enquiry-based learning works in apparently very different scenarios. This is a valuable early learning for the pupils and should build confidence that similar approaches can be used again and again to help record and understand diverse physical phenomena. Both lessons enable and indeed encourage individual and group reflection. Really nice.
Really nice lesson. Covers many of the critical methodologies associated with enquiry-based learning. Pupils can add their own observations, some of which might affect the outcome (e.g., hollow or solid) and some which do not (e.g., red or blue colouring of two objects made from the same material).
Hi Sarah. That’s a space fact that’s hard to get one’s head around. Great way to help kids visualise large numbers and gets them to think of comparing two very different types of objects.
Hi Fionnuala. Great that you have a child with a particular interest in space. Keeping them engaged poses fascinating and different challenges to kids who are less interested. If you do have a fun space fact to share, here’s a good place to do so!
Welcome Sinead. New ideas are the lifeblood of the forum and some good new ideas already evident in the forum. Any fun space fact to share?
Hi Sarah, delighted to know you’re hungry to expand your knowledge and hopefully this course will do just that. If you have a fun fact, do share!
Great fun fact Stephanie. And just imagine how many stars there are that you can see with your eyes apart from the sun. The usual guess is in the millions, but it’s only about 2500.
Hi Evelyn, great to see the enthusiasm. If you have a fun space fact, do share! I’m fascinated to know what it might be. There’s no shortage to choose from.
Valerie,
did you know that there are cameras aboard the ISS showing the view it has of the Earth?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H999s0P1Er0
and there is a pre-recorded set of clips at https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2021/04/Earth_views_from_space_1_hour_long_in_4K
and here is a super introduction, with ESA’s Samantha Cristoforetti describing what she does in space:
https://youtu.be/Lzjz7pDfS_4?si=nYM7bkOX_vCMCG_q
Hello I’m European Space agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.
Onboard of the International Space Station.
And right now and I am enjoying my favourite past time up here:
looking out of the window at our marvellous planet Earth.
You know, we fly around the Earth once every 90 minutes,
an hour and a half,
so 15 to 16 times every day.
Every time we fly around the Earth
we have a sunrise and a sunset
and we can enjoy all the diverse views and landscapes,
the different seasons, the mountains, the oceans, the deserts, the cities.
It’s just so beautiful!
You know when I’m on Earth,
when I have a quiet moment, I like to read
so I will find a quiet place and open up a book.
But when I’m up here strangely enough I don’t read much.
And I think that’s because
I recognise I’m only in Space for a short amount of time and
in the little free time I have I want to take advantage of this marvellous beauty.
And take pictures so I can share.
I like to find places of Earth where I’ve been, where I want to go,
that I’ve read about, that I’ve heard about
or maybe just where my family and friends and loved ones live.
So how about you?
What hobbies do you have?
And what hobbies do you think you would try out up here in Space?Denise,
I really like your suggestions on ways to use Astronomy Picture of the Day with different classes -may we share them with other teachers as part of the Space Week Arts ideas?
Aishling,
with the planet video, if you look at the image of the solar system at https://youtu.be/noiwY7kQ5NQ?feature=shared&t=51
there could be an interesting maths discussion about – “is that really how the planets are arranged” – and with the Solar System resource you could look at creating a scale model with children as the planets. This is super in a large area, with the children tasked to move at different speeds. You might ask for “big steps” small steps, baby steps, as different children take on the role of faster or slower planets.