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I would love, with the help of parents and the local community to have a seafood tasting. Many classes that I speak to about fish have a very negative reaction and don’t like fish but this could definitely be improved by having them try some with their family.
The sheltered conditions in the west and south west of Ireland seem to provide the ideal conditions for aquaculture and every time I visit Killary harbour the first thing people want to know is What are those things in the water?’ Reading about Killary shellfish and the mussels that are farmed there by locals was very informative and no doubt provides vital socio-economic support to the local community. As well as generating jobs in processing, distribution and retail, seafood is more readily available to locals and local restaurants – and mussels and oysters are v very much in demand, especially to tourists who love to enjoy local seafood. It was interesting to read how under utilised our coastlines are while farming land is at a premium, meaning that we will heavily rely on aquaculture to provide quality sources of protein in the future. At a national level, aquaculture contributes to the economy through exports all over the world.
I have really enjoyed this module and have learned so much already about aquaculture – something that I have to admit I didn’t know enough about – and this is why I was so drawn to this course. Our school is beside the sea and yet we don’t spend enough time investigating our local environment. I have worked on some projects with the Galway aquarium – including keeping a saltwater aquarium in our classroom, as well as designing posters for Seafest. I feel that we need to take the next step and educate our classes about where the seafood that they eat comes from and the importance of sustainability. Our community as a whole needs to understand their social responsibility – so it would be great to include parents in what the children are learning – through an open evening and invited speakers – and perhaps even a tasting of local seafood! We are lucky to be close to the Marine Institute in Galway and we have our Oyster festival here every year so we have plenty of local resources that we can tap into – along with the wealth of great resources and lessons introduced in this module.
I hope to plan some engaging and hands-on activities for my second class students this year for space week.
DIY Rocket Launch – there are some great examples in this module of creating various types of rockets. We could measure how far different types of rockets fly.
Space Kahoot quiz
Planet Scavenger Hunt – Hiding planet pictures and providing clues for each.
Space Art – Drawing or painting scenes from Space, designing a spacecraft or an alien being.Creating a Solar System model.
Working with Stellarium to examine and create star constellations. Looking at the difference between how planets and stars look.
Space Stories – Reading space-themed story books and writing our own space stories.
NASA Virtual Tours
Guest Speakers
Space -Themed Movies eg Wall-E
Maths activities – investigating the length of the day on different planets, distance between planets, weight on each planet or playing space bingo.I really like the Astronomy picture of the day – I certainly hope to look at this as much as I can next year.
I hope to use Stellarium with my second class next year in order to help them to identify planets and basic constellations and to understand the movements of the night sky. I will begin ny asking my class if they have ever looked at the night sky and ask them what they have noticed/seen – and explain to them that we are going to use a program called Stellarium to help them to understand the night sky. I will instruct them in how to use controls and toolbar to search for well known constellations and we sill examine the difference between how stars and planets look and move in the sky. we will ‘time-travel’ by changing the date and time to help them to understand that the night sky changes over time. After using tellurium we will use stickers and charts so that the children can create their own constellations. I am looking forward to getting started with this!
I think that a lesson about designing an alien being would not only engage students creativity but also allow them to think about life beyond the Earth and the geography and science of different planets and moons. After discussing the possibility of life in space and how that might look we can discuss the variety of life on earth and how animals are adapted to live in a variety of environments eg deserts and the poles. Working in groups the children will research the landscape and atmosphere of various planets and moons and design an alien which could survive in that environment. Their alien might be adapted to live in very hot/cold temperatures, low-gravity, high-pressure, toxic, dusty environments etc. After sketching their alien they could create it using clay and paint, give it a name and introduce it to their classmates. The activity could be extended into a writing class where the children write a story or poem incorporating their alien.
my class love playing chase the shadows in pe class, trying to catch another Childs shadow or evading having their own shadow caught. we have also created dramas in class using shadow puppets that the children have created. they really are excited by working with shadows.
I really like the simplicity of the activity introduced here explaining how day and night occur. After asking groups to discuss how they believe or what they know about how day and night occur I would use the flashlight activity introduced here to explain in a simple what is happening. I would give each child a small ball and ask them to draw a person or house on their ball they would be able to try the activity themselves and to explore when their figure is experiencing day or night. I would finish by asking each child to draw a picture of their neighbourhood at night or during the day, showing us where the sun or moon is in the sky.
I think a great activity to support this in art class would be asking a group to create their own model to explain how day and night happens to younger children and asking them to visit our infant classes to show what they have learned and use their model to teach.
I am currently teaching 2nd class in Galway – an interesting fact about space is that the coldest place in the universe can measure -252 degrees celsius.
Inquiry-based activities are an exciting way to engage the children’s curiosity and to better understand our universe. After introducing them to the solar system using a NASA video I would split the class into groups to explore information about one of the planets to fill in a space explorers logbook of facts. Using these facts they can prepare a presentation for the class using a 3D model that they create, a poster or report by an astronaut who has visited this planet. One child from each group would then come together with a child from each other group as a representative to discuss the similarities and differences between their planets. I find that children love to learn and share interesting facts about space and other planets!
