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Hi Orla,
Completely forgot about that Declan O’Rourke song, been a long time since I heard that one. I never knew ‘The Sky Garden’ existed, it’s now on the list to visit.This has been an enjoyable task of finding links to my own music and art exposure and thinking of the ways children, particularly in the older classes might relate to and learn from these songs, poems and art that I’ve chosen. I believe it would be a fun opening task to have the children brainstorming their own ‘Night sky’ songs, poems and art; individually, in pairs or even in groups.
Some of my choices in songs:
“Sky Full of Stars” – Coldplay
“The Voyage” – Christy Moore
“Dancing in the Moonlight” – Toploader
“Dancing in the Moonlight” – Thin Lizzy
“Fly Me to the Moon” – Frank Sinatra
“Counting Stars” – OneRepublic
” Scaití ” – OneRepublic counting stars as GaeilgeSome of the Poems I’ve been exposed to which involve the night sky are:
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” – W.B. Yeats
“Stars” – Robert Frost
“To the Evening Star” – William BlakeI don’t know a huge amount about art. The only ones obvious to me were “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh and “The Scream” by Edvard Munch.
After researching, some other ones I liked were:
“Starry Night and the Astronauts” by Alma Thomas and “The Starry Sky” by Jean-François Millet.Hi Marie,
I love how, after introducing biodiversity, you keep the research topics quite broad so that each group will become experts on the different threats. Lots of opportunities for peer-teaching and presenting then.-How you would incorporate the needs of nocturnal species, especially those that rely on dark skies into school biodiversity plans?
We could have push on light pollution reduction in the school, we already have motion sensors and light timers, but we could shield the lighting so that all outdoor lights are directed downward and ensure that only low intensity bulbs are used. Awareness is one of the biggest things we can change as educators. My school always has a focus on sharing CPD, sometimes during meeting hours. Using all of the light pollution resources in this unit and the last unit, I would be able to share awareness of the light pollution issues at a staff level. This could encourage planning at each class level of lessons about nocturnal species and the effects of light pollution. We could encourage student-led surveys to monitor nocturnal species’ activity in school or as a home task, which can help in understanding the school’s ecosystem and the learners’ home ecosystems. Our school already has a wildlife garden, which is very well attended and cared for. Ensuring this gets less light pollution would encourage nocturnal creatures. We could organise field trips and guest speakers to talk to the children. One example, could be a visit to the National Reptile Zoo, which is close to our school in Kilkenny. They would have experts on nocturnal and diurnal reptiles and how they accommodate them.
I’m sure learners will have also experienced the difference between the cities and the likes of a rural spot in Kerry. They might enjoy using the Light pollution map on the presentation to compare, rural areas to small towns, to larger town and cities.
Light pollution affects our health first and foremost. We spend such a large percentage of our day asleep, it’s important to maximse the quality of that sleep and avoid disrupting our circadian rhythms. All other creatures in our ecosystems are also affected by light pollution. These creatures might change their natural evolutionary habits to avoid light exposure at night. Particularly nocturnal animals and insects attracted to light sources, Barn Owls being prevalent in Kilkenny
As outlined in the presentation, learners can be engaged to explore light pollution by raising awareness of the problem, this could be done with posters, surveys, videos and linked to green schools and energy conservation. Debates could get the learners thinking about the pros and cons of outdoor lighting from different perspectives in our local area. Children could explore how our area ranks to the neighbouring areas and the national average in terms of light pollution using the website for light pollution map provided. Children could research local wildlife and
using information on their natural habits, determine if any are affected by artificial light.Love the art aspect in point 4 Meadhbh. Your activities would be perfect for all styles of learners.
In using Stellarium to get children to investigate constellations, I would get the children to create join-the-dot style pictures using skylines. This would engage them as they could create their own constellations and explore the creativity and imagination behind naming constellations, follow by compare and contrast galleries of their ideas. Children would then be able to use the stellarium to research and label the most prominent constellations. The children could demonstrate their new understanding of constellations in a variety of creative ways. One that I reckon the children would enjoy is using chalk on the black tarmac of the school yard to lay out the stars from their research. Children could then join them in an ipad video to create their groups’ astronomer’s guide to identifying the constellations. This lesson would involve a mix of art strands, ICT, history, and English. For older classes, distances, ratios and angles could be used in greater depth.
Hi Emma,
I love the research aspect of your lesson engagement. I know that in our school, the students love using the ipads, finding pictures and locating icons on google maps. You could follow up this task with, where in the students’ homes would get the best sundial results or a ‘county council’ designing sundials for the locality task.I think the third task of “observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day” would be a fantastic task to explore that the children have exposure to almost daily, (weather dependent of course), but have probably never given too much thought to investigate.
Firstly, I would engage the children with a prediction cold task of having a wide-lens picture or outline of the school and sky from the gate. The children would have to put 3 suns in the picture; the sun when they entered school this morning, the sun when they have their outdoor play (circa midday) and when they leave school for home. Children discuss reasons for their guesses. With our school’s ipads, I would get a few focus groups to set up hyperlapses of the sky to run through the school day. Other groups would be given compasses and could set up hyperlapses of the sun from their choice of directions. When the data is collected, they could be compared to their cold-task predictions and compared with different groups to compare and contrast the positions of the sun, depending on their directions.