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First off, I always love the idea of a whole school project as it brings families together if siblings of different classes are working on the same “homework”, and it involves the greater school community. Collecting piseógs/ stories of the night will mix folklore, oral history, creativity, and culture. To begin, discuss what piseógs are and how they have been passed down orally, and some examples from dúchas.ie. Inviting grandparents as guest speakers would be a wonderful starting point also; the children would love to see their family members involved if possible. Perhaps a grandparent of another heritage could talk to the classes too, as it would be nice to involve other traditional stories- or this could be another school project entirely. Children could interview an elderly person they know (grandparent, neighbour) with a bank of questions about piseógs, superstitions, traditions, and stories, through a written task, audio/ video recording, illustrations. Whole school presentation of the project could take the form of wall displays, slideshow on the school website, or accumulation into a book.
Really nice ideas here, and building bat boxes through STEM is great. The children would enjoy seeing their boxes in the school grounds, even if they wouldn’t see the bats using them.
I think incorporating the needs of nocturnal species, especially those that rely on dark skies, into school biodiversity plans will be most effective if the ideas and plans come from the children themselves. There could be a whole school brainstorm on how to do this, led by Student Council or similar, raising awareness of the effects of light on nocturnal animals, in particular those native to the school grounds. Guest speakers could be invited to inform the children of these animals as it would be difficult to observe them naturally. Ideas could include installing wildlife cameras, motion sensors, creating a dark space in the school garden with bat boxes and other type houses, and planting “night” flowers that attract moths and other nocturnal bugs. This topic could be a whole school theme, adapted to suit different levels.
It would take time to plan, implement, and monitor. Reports could be included in school newsletters and local newspapers. The school could work towards the “Dark Sky Friendly School” award from “Dark Sky Ireland”.
What I picked up on in your activity, is the word “small” and it is very effective. Sometimes, the small acts can lead to big changes. The children will feel empowered that they can reduce light pollution in simple ways in their own world, and it will be more meaningful for them.
The “Globe at Night” citizen science programme connects science of the world, environmental awareness, and STEM. The idea is for people to report on the brightness of the night sky in their part of the world by comparing it to star charts. The learning objects associated with this teaching resource are:
– Understand what light pollution is and how it affects us, animals, and the starry night, and;
– Observe and record data about the night sky.
To introduce light pollution, the teacher will show pictures/ videos of dark and light skies, and discuss the differences, sources, and effects. During an observation window, the children will be encouraged to record location, time, cloud cover, and match to the star chart, and present this information to the “Globe at Night” website. This will need to be modelled, and depending on the ability and interest of the class, could be integrated with English and Drama as a presentation; younger classes could fill in a template with pictures/ tick boxes; older classes could write in details. Then, the class would compare their findings to “Globe at Night” maps, which can provide lots of integration with Maths (graphs, data, averages, percentages). To close, the children could brainstorm ways to raise awareness about light pollution, e.g. posters, persuasive letters.
The children would really enjoy the independent element of this activity (observation at night).
Using the Framework for Inquiry, to introduce constellations, the teacher would show the children the night sky and ask if they know of constellations or what the constellations remind them of- “Engage: The Trigger”. They might wonder where the constellations originated and discuss possibilities for this- “Wondering”. Then, the children can draw a chosen constellation and construct it using toothpicks and jellies, and to extend this for an older class, they can research the constellation and present their findings to the class- “Investigate”. Younger classes might join dots on the page to make up their own constellation and name it; and older classes could make comparisons between the Northern and Southern hemisphere skies at night- “Take the next step: Applying Learning/ Making Connections”.
To use ICT, Stellarium is a great tool to show constellations. Opportunities for integration are:
History/ English- stories of constellations from Ancient Greece;
Art- drawing, construction;
Maths- measures, shape and space
I like how you’re using ICT, David, and how you’re consistent with times of day of observing the sun. I wonder how it would work on a cloudy day- would you still be able to record the sun’s position?
Under SESE Energy and Forces, “Day and Night in the World” has been designed by ESERO as an inquiry- based classroom activity to explore how Earth’s rotation leads to day and night, supporting Liston (2018) who describes STEM as integrated, hands- on, investigative learning, promoting creativity, collaboration, and problem- solving.
A typical classroom approach to this activity would be to introduce and explore the concept through a story, such as “Day and Night” by Eric Carle or, via YouTube video by Robert Nelson, and discuss what the world looks like, what we/ animals do during the day and night. To demonstrate the concept of day and night, the teacher would use a torch to represent the sun and a ball to represent the Earth in a darkened room, showing how one side of the ball is “day” while the other is “night”. The children use these resources to observe and explain to each other the concept. As a closing activity, the children can draw day/ night activities and record sentences.