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I really like the idea of “food tasting”. It gives the students the opportunity to taste different types of seafood that they may never have had the opportunity to taste before if their household doesn’t eat seafood.
Understanding the health and nutritional values of different seafood will strengthen the children’s knowledge around the key nutrients we get from seafood and make informed decisions around healthy eating. It also offers teachers the opportunity to incorporate health and nutrition education into maths, science and the Arts.
The Seafood Nutrition Handbook is a great resource for teachers and gives in depth information around the nutritional values of different seafood. Getting the students to share their seafood eating patterns at home, their favourite fish dinner and reflect on where they think their parent’s buy their seafood from is a great way to introduce a lesson such as “Eye Spy in the Supermarket”. Getting the children to investigate labels on seafood starts the conversation around nutritional values and looking at the different labels and certification that represent sustainability.
Hi Michaela,
I really like the idea of marine based projects. This enquiry based approach to learning about aquaculture would develop the key skills in STEM education and the students would really enjoy it.
The ARC’s online lessons provide a great opportunity to get students talking about what Aquaculture is, the nutrition of seafood, aquaculture and the community and sustainable seafood. The quiz’s at the end of each section allows the teacher to gauge their understanding of the topic and provides a springboard to engage in enquiry based learning.
The lessons provide an opportunity as a teacher to further develop the key skills of STEM: critical thinking, collaboration, communication and problem solving, as outlined in the STEM Education Policy Statement.
As I was engaging with the ARC’s online lessons, I came across a lovely STEM Lesson that would develop all the key skills mentioned above and allows for enquiry based learning. It is a lesson on Designing and Building a Floating Fish Farm and students build a model of a floating fish farm where they must consider buoyancy, water quality and fish species. Children are engaging in Engineering (design and construction) science (buoyancy) and maths(measures). They are also developing all the key skills of STEM education.
The ARC lessons also provide a great opportunity for engaging in SSE and improving the quality of teaching and learning in STEM in our school. It will raise awareness of aquaculture and the video’s provide a stimulus to get children curious about Aquaculture.
I never considered the improvement of infrastructure development in the rural community as a result of aquaculture. This is definitely a positive for the rural communities involved in aquaculture.
Aquaculture farms in Ireland are primarily located along the Western Atlantic coastline in bays, inlets and on the shoreline, providing ideal conditions for shellfish farms and finfish farms concentrated in the west. Land features in these regions make aquaculture the predominant type of farming.
Aquaculture supports local coastal communities directly and indirectly. It provides opportunities in a variety of different careers such as a commercial divers, to undertake underwater surveys in marine protected areas. It offers opportunities in careers in commercial fishing, passenger boat proficiency, skippers and fishing vessel engineering.
The aquaculture industry provides direct employment in rural coastal areas, with some areas relying heavily on aquaculture for local jobs where alternative economic activities might be limited.
Hi Michelle,
We are also in a landlocked county and I agree with your point that the likes of the interactive ARC classroom could spark an interest in children to study in an area such as marine biology in the future. All children should have an opportunity to engage with these interactive tools.
The various interactive tools used in module 1 will give students in my school the opportunity to connect with aquaculture in an engaging and meaningful way and may spark an interest in some pupils to study in this area in the future.
The ARC classroom makes learning about aquaculture more engaging and interesting for students. It is immersive and interactive, therefore, captivating the interesting of the students. These tools allow the students gain a deeper understanding of aquaculture practices and their impact on economic, social and environmental systems.
Social licence, communicating with the public about developments in aquaculture is essential for the future of aquaculture. It allows students to reflect on their own values and their awareness of sustainability and how they can act as responsible citizens. It gets us to think critically and reflect on ethical issues.
Hi Sean,
I really like the idea of the children growing heir own food in the school garden. It is something that they can encourage at home if they have the space.
Many of our students live near the River Shannon and they have witnessed flooding over the last few years. They know people who have been personally effected by flooding and the damage it has caused to homes and farms. This is the effect of climate change in our area, more frequent storms and more rainfall leading to rising water levels and flooding. To engage the students we would look at interviews and paper clippings from the time of the floods and invite guest speakers from the local area who were directly affected by the floods.
We would then come up with 3 actions that we could do as a school community to help slow down the impact of climate change. These would include researching a more renewable source of energy for our school, such as solar panels or wind turbines. As part of our Green School initiative we are making sure that we are energy conscious and trying to conserve energy as much as we can in school and carrying it on into our homes. Another action that we are currently doing as a school is reducing our waste and recycling. More work can be done in our school in this area in our school to ensure that we are recycling properly. Lastly, looking at more environmentally friendly ways to travel to school such as carpooling, cycling and walking to reduce our carbon footprint.Hi Colin,
I really like the idea of a “buddy system” in place. We only recently had our first Ukrainian family enrol in our school and I feel that this is something that would work really well to integrate the children into our school community.
Our community has a voluntary organisation called “New Horizon” who welcome and support people who seek refugee. I wasn’t aware of this until I researched what services are available in our area for refugees. They have a multi cultural choir and I feel that this may provide a link to our school community as they put on performances in a local venue. They are also making links with the community by engaging in a community garden and coming together with a Gateway Youth Project to create animation videos.
This organisation has recently registered as a charity so this is one way that we can support this organisation by having a fundraiser or donation drive. I feel that the lessons included in this module are very good to support the children in their understanding of what it is like to be a refugee. It might be a nice idea to get the children to write a letter to our local direct provision centre and introduce themselves and build a connection with them.
Hi Orla,
I really like the idea of connecting with peers in other countries. I think that this would be a fantastic way for the children to foster a sense of global citizenship and get a real sense of inequality in education.
I would like to focus on SDG 4 in quality education and get the children in my school to take action in supporting SDG 4. The video clips shown throughout this module were thought provoking and highlighted the inequality of access to education in Ireland and globally. Education is a right for all children yet 67 million children(mostly girls) are not being educated. In Ireland, lack of access to education can hinder a child’s potential in life .
I would adopt a project based approach to explore this SDG. I think a good stimulus to start a conversation with the children is to use the short video clip used in the module that shows the inequality in education. In groups they can research more into the topic of educational inequality both in Ireland and globally and bring an awareness to the rest of the school through posters , donating books to various charities and maybe connecting with a school in another country through the use of technology. It is important that they raise an awareness of the importance of access to education for all.
I found this module to be very informative and I decided that I would do this course as I was not sure as to what Development Education was about and it is something that I would like to introduce in my own school. After completing the module, my understanding is that the aim is to ensure that teachers and children are aware of what is happening around the world and to enable us as teachers to empower our pupils to take action and show them how they can make positive changes in the world. In the article it says “Change is the mantra of the global citizen” and how the task of improving ourselves and taking small social actions is a sufficient starting point in embracing our role as a global citizen. I think that this is an important message to bring back to my school if we are to engage in Development Education.
I really found the input from schools in the module that are engaging in Development Education very interesting. Even though they were from post primary schools I could see how we could develop it in our own school. It was clear from the schools participating in Development Education that it was a positive experience and enabled students to understand and respond to challenges of global injustices.
I like that there is a resource to use at primary level from 1st to 6th that allows for differentiation and integration into other subject areas. As a teacher of 1st and 2nd class, I like the idea of using games to explore fairness and social inequalities. To encourage all staff to engage with Development Education I would organise professional development in the area and I would also use the slides from this module to give them an understanding of what it entails.
