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Consider how many Songs / Poems /Art can you think of to connect us with the Night Sky?
One of my favourite parts of lesson planning on any topic is finding songs, poetry and works of art to complement SESE lessons. While working on lesson plans for the maths topic the circle I discovered artist Alma Thomas. While working on lesson plans for the American Revolution my class LOVED listening to the Hamilton soundtrack (filtered where necessary). While working on a lesson plan for biodiversity I discovered the poem Nature Trail by Benjamin Zephaniah. The possibilities for integration with the arts seem just endless no matter what topic is being covered and it is an aspect of lesson planning that I thoroughly enjoy. Some works relating to the topic of the Night Sky are:
MUSIC
The Planets Suite by Holst
Star Wars soundtrack by John Williams
ET soundtrack by John Williams
Spaceman by Babylon Zoo
A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay
When you Wish Upon a Star from Pinocchio
ART
Starry Night
Starry Night Over the Rhone by Van Gogh
POETRY
The Rainbow By William Wordsworth
Aurora by Emily DickinsonHow you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and
the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity.I am very lucky to teach in a school in a very rural area and we have the advantage of going on regular nature walks in the locality. Our school backs onto a country lane with an abundance of plant and animal life. Last year during National Tree Week we did an audit of tree species along the lane and in the neighbouring parkland. We could similarly do a nature walk and audit of plant and animal life to stimulate a biodiversity lesson. We could then look at our own environment and compare it to biodiversity worldwide – a savannah type area, a rainforest area, an ocean etc and compare and contrast the animals and plants native to those areas and how their needs are met by the climate and conditions in those areas. To incorporate light pollution into the lesson we would first watch the clip explaining what light pollution is and then predict and discuss which environments both local and worldwide might be most affected by light pollution.
Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
I teach in a very rural area where there are good quality dark skies. During Science Week the Sky Dome visited our school which was just a fantastic education tool for the children to recognise certain constellations and take that knowledge and search for them in the night sky. A good exercise might be to set a task for children to search for constellations from their own garden viewpoint at night and record their findings. Using Google maps each child could pinpoint the location of their home and highlight light pollution sources close to their home. Some of the children live in extremely rural areas with good dark sky quality while others live in estates in neighbouring larger villages. A comparison of visibility between different homes and locations would be a very interesting senior project. Another thing that occurs to me is that this topic of light pollution could tie in nicely to the Green Schools Programme. We are entering year 2 of our Transport flag for Green Schools and the children have started planning a ‘No idling’ campaign for the coming year encouraging parents to turn engines off in the car park while waiting to collect their children after school. This could be extended to encourage parents to turn off both engines and headlights when collecting children after evening training in local sports clubs with a view to reducing light pollution as well as emissions.
Task: Create a short teaching resource using Stellarium/ WorldWide Telescope.
My current 5th and 6th class have a great interest in classical civilisations and literature and last year we carried out a 2 month long project on the legends of Theseus and the Minotaur and the Labours of Hercules. The children read and answered questions on these legends, acted them out in drama and depicted them using various media during art lessons. They also wrote diary entries during English lessons in character as Theseus or Hercules. There were so many cross curricular ways in which to address this theme. I would choose new legends for this year, for example Perseus, Medusa and Pegasus and use Stellarium web to find the corresponding constellations for each myth. The children could also create the constellations using tin foil and string as a collage lesson. Two years ago we went on a trip during Science Week to the Armagh Planetarium and it could certainly be a great way again to bring all that the children had learned to life!
I will be addressing the option of planning how my 5th and 6th class students could observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day. This time last year I completed the course Discover Climate & Space with ESERO and it prompted me to start a climate log in the classroom for the first half term of the academic year. The children had a log book and a notice board and they recorded cloud type, rainfall, temperature and wind speed every school day for the month of September. They then spent October analysing, graphing the results and predicting weather based on their September observations. It was a hugely popular project which all of the children thoroughly enjoyed. I would love to take this prior learning and do a sun log this year with the children observing, logging, analysing and predicting sunrise and sunset data as well as sun positions throughout the day. The wonderful thing about this topic is that it also lends itself so readily to other curricular areas allowing for great integration such as for example The Planets by Holst and The Star Wars Suite by Williams in music. Art could entail painting sunrises and sunsets or constructing solar system models. Maths is a very easily integrated subject as we would be engaging with the data and averages concepts also.