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Hi Jennifer, great to see how engaged you are with Science Week and Space Week and that you do loads of STEM activities, and yet are still happy to look for new ideas as well as sharing some from your own experiences. This type of sharing and learning is perfect for this type of forum and thanks also for the expansive mind map which focuses not only on STEM but also Art and other creative activities.
Hi Louise, welcome and thanks for the fun fact. I like the way you and Jennifer have used the excitement of rockets and astronauts and where they live as a means to explore, test, reflect and predict. Perfect for the ESERO Framework.
And don’t forget there’s an ESERO Rocket launch resource! https://esero.ie/resources/rocket-launch/
Hi Lianna, great observation that the Sun is considered an average-size star. It’s also interesting that most of the stars you can see in the night sky are bigger and brighter than our sun. Things which are brighter can be seen farther away and you can test this by comparing a dim torch and a bright torch outside and seeing which is easier to see.
Hi Rachel, welcome to the forum and thanks for the fact about the length of day on Venus. You can show your infants that for every one rotation of Venus the earth rotates 117 times. This might be a number that’s a bit challenging, so an alternative is to show how a globe representing earth spins quickly while one representing Venus spins slowly. You can ask why we don’t all get thrown off, which is of course thanks to gravity!
Welcome Aisling! Thanks for the space fact. It’s a popular one and worth looking back through the forum comments to see how you can take it forward in class. Thanks also for sharing the lesson. Lots of interactive possibilities which is great.
Hi Emily, your comment about “no pressure to get everything right” is hugely important. We’re all trying to teach and build confidence at the same time, and feeling pressure to “get it right” can dent confidence. It’s the approach, the observations, the conclusions and learnings which are the most critical part of the process. Sometimes experiments go wrong or give an unexpected result, but that’s ok within the context of a good inquiry-based learning framework.
Hi Emily, welcome to the forum. I have no doubt you’ll find some of the fun space facts in earlier posts are worth using in class! They cover a wide range, but they’re all connected by acting as a prompt – why does that look like that; is it surprising that that’s a fact; what are the implications of that fact; and so on. This underlines that even when we know a fact, much of its power is in being able to use it to explore further and question more. Inquiry-based learning prompted by an apparently random fact!
Hi Sarah. Might be of interest to know there are craters on the Moon where the sun never reaches because they form a permanent shadow. In those environments water will stay frozen for millions or billions of years! That would never happen on Earth because we have active weather systems (e.g., rain to melt the snow). Also, the tectonic plates of the earth move which means Ireland is slowly moving along with all the other parts of the planet. So, for example, a billion years ago it’s likely that Ireland was south of the equator, part of a supercontinent called Rodinia!
Hi Georgie, thanks for that lesson plan which is well structured and I think would excite the class. You could add a twist by asking about gravity on other planets. Does it exist? Do they think it’s the same as on Earth, or different. And if different, how. And what are the implications? There are a few ideas from earlier posts on the forum that you might find interesting.
Hi Audrey, welcome to the forum and thanks for the fun space fact which is one of the most popular. The idea that people have walked on the Moon and left footprints is truly hard to imagine. Will there be more footprints in the future? Would any of your pupils like to have their footprints on the Moon for millions of years?
Hi Michelle, welcome and thanks for that new fun space fact. It’s fascinating the way we have to have a leap year to keep our calendar and seasons in sync.
Hi Isobel, welcome to the forum. I agree – gravity is really interesting. Imagine a universe without it. There would be no stars or planets or galaxies …. or you or me. So it’s pretty important to say the least. I really liked your inquiry-based lesson and its breadth and opportunity for group work and exploration.
Welcome Sean. Thanks for the fun fact. Images of Mons Olympus show that not only is it huge, but that it has a huge cone in the centre. Billions of years ago this would have been an active volcano – today it’s essentially dead. It’s an interesting way to ask what causes volcanoes and what happens they become dormant, and why. (Note that volcanos on Earth may well have injected sufficient quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere to enable it to act as a warm blanket. When life came along, through photosynthesis plants were able to convert the Co2 into oxygen and ultimately make an atmosphere that’s good for us animals!)