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Emma,
Space buggies are a perfect example of a design and make that links to the child’s own understanding.
I would strongly suggest including a wheel of some sort, which will allow the children to access the Making skill of “• understand that these materials can be linked in simple ways to allow movement make a wheel and axle using a pencil and thread spools;” from SESE Science, Infants / Skills.
When we have made these with teachers at in-person CPD events, or with children during workshops a range of possibilities open up, with both fixed axle (and rotating wheels) and fixed wheel with rotating axles. Have a supply of straws and skewers and a range of round objects and wheels will happen.
Shulagh,
this will require some careful manipulation to stop a dripping hand getting the interior object wet. You might want to tie a string around the wrapped toy and dunk it in the water, think of your ‘biscuit dunking’ technique. (which could make a fun take the next step, see this now closed competition: https://community.stem.org.uk/blogs/tim-bradbury1/2024/01/17/student-competition)
Would you have the toy coated with something that would show clearly if it got wet? Depending on the toy, a coating of custard powder might be effective, since it changes to a bright orange once wet.
Sarah,
What I like about both of these types of rockets is how they can promote inquiry learning. Children can watch them launch as the prompt, wonder and explore how they work and then investigate a factor of their choosing that arises from their own questions.
Both types of rockets are reliable, and have enough variables that can be changed to keep a 2nd class cohort going for the week!
If you want to include some Irish in this, use the Curious Minds Irish language version of the balloon rocket activity which is also in the downloads for this module.
Emma,
it is interesting to measure the distance between stars, since when we observe stars, we see them on a ‘celestial sphere’ and we can measure the angular distance between them as if they were all the same distance away from us. For most people, a hand made into a fist and held up at arms length spans about 10 degrees. (see this article: https://lco.global/spacebook/sky/using-angles-describe-positions-and-apparent-sizes-objects/)
Of course, they are not all the same distance, and the Plough activity tries to show that.
What distance would you have the children measure?
A recent article has a theory about white holes, but they are very much a science fiction idea at the minute.
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/white-hole
https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/what-is-a-white-hole
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/black-holes-white-holes/
Orla,
appears to be the source, but unfortunately is incomplete. It has “Show children actual images of the earth, the moon and the sun from space. [see suggested web-sites below] ”
I would suggest for images of the Earth from Space to use one of the most famous of all Earth in Space images, Earthrise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise
use met.ie for current images:
https://www.met.ie/latest-reports/satellites/world-visible
Helioviewer (https://student.helioviewer.org/) is a powerful platform to show a range of satellite images of the Sun, a guide on its use appears in https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/MagneticSunandSpaceWeather.pdf
Maeve,
you could go a bit deeper into how houses are adapted for different climate and weather conditions, perhaps by using
which has images of shelters from around the world to be matched with weather.
The language of this resource is a bit beyond Infants, but the selection of images is super.
Lorraine,
you’ll get a chance to meet some penguins and a polar bear in the fourth module. Simple inquiry activities arise from the questions the children ask, and in this example they have wondered how animals stay warm, have been given the chance to make a prediction (animals that have blubber can keep warmer than animals without) and then have tested it by using their own fingers coated with blubber.
Blubber glove is another variant on this, see https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/blubber-gloves for an example.
Hi Maeve,
here is a taster of the book you mention, which is a new recommendation.
https://youtu.be/22vszc4TEJA?si=n_XHcu5p7CyF_DJc
There is a read along here.
I like how gravity has been personified and is not being a good friend to Leda in the story.
Of note is the ramp that the library cart rolls down. Ramps are a nice way to slow down falling objects in order to measure the time they take to fall (roll). This is how Galileo was able to observe falling objects in the early 1600s and realise that velocity was proportional to acceleration.
https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/phy03.sci.phys.mfw.galileoplane/galileos-inclined-plane/
We have mentioned before how powerful a tool ramps can be in the primary classroom, see https://regentsctr.uni.edu/ramps-pathways/ramps-pathways,
and ramps may be a way for the children to be able to see which object goes faster, since “Ask students to think, pair share which object fell quicker. Give groups objects to test themselves” In dropping pairs of objects to see which one lands first, they are likely to fall too fast to note unless one object experiences much more air resistance than another. If that happens, then it is the air resistance that is making the difference.
Órnaith,
Please do register your class (or school) event at Space Week. The event can be the activity you plan for your class and does not need to be a public event for others to attend, although you may want to invite parents to visit the class to share the Space adventure their children have been on during the week.
You can register at https://www.spaceweek.ie/add/
If you would like to apply for a slot for ESERO Space Goes to School, which matches a speaker to a school, you can register your interest here: https://www.spaceweek.ie/for-organisers/for-teachers/space-speaker-in-your-classroom/
Pól,
I like how this activity has been planned to access a range of curricular objectives, including Science / Materials – I presume Infants > describe and compare materials, noting the differences in the colour, shape and texture
and 1st/2nd class: begin to explore how different materials may be used in the construction of homes suited to their environments
It could be interesting to survey the local area if any houses are currently under construction. Or, you could use images from Google Maps of the area or historical images from Google Earth to find houses under construction. (see here for a guide: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/travel-back-time-google-street-view/)
There is this area near to Blackrock where new apartments are being built:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.8831256,-8.3879657,460a,35y,271.6h,44.82t/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
Heidi,
You have nicely matched the increasingly more complex rockets to the older classes. See also the “Rocket a Day” from Scoil Chaitríona Renmore, who are great supporters of Space Week each year.
http://junior.renmoreschool.com/Space/Index.html
With the foam rockets for 2nd class you have the opportunity to discuss fair testing, as different lengths of foam, different elastics and different distance the elastic is pulled will all make a difference to the distance travelled.
Veronica,
you can find a single page image of this activity as part of the ISS Primary Education Kit, at this link: https://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/primedukit/en/PrimEduKit_ch2_en.pdf
on page 57.
There is a requirement for some fine motor skills to make this rocket, some children find it tricky to get the first part of the paper wrapped around the pencil. For those children you might consider this variant: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/rockets-guide-20-321-puff.pdf?emrc=9e78ae
Eileen,
I like how you have planned to try two quite different rocket models, the Rocket Mice and the balloon rockets.
To make the balloon rockets seem more rocket-like you could fix the string vertically. We did a similar activity last year during Space Week, building up to “Heavy Lifters.” The heavy lifting task could be a “take the next step” for children who find the balloon rocket task straightforward.
Dayna,
thank you for sharing a lovely lesson outline, so suitable for infants.
Have you seen this site with further ideas and a delightful stop motion animation version of the story?