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I love the connection to our Irish storytelling and in particular the history or oral storytelling. I also love when the children connect with older relatives and are excited to tell their story in class. I love how this lesson plan brings both history and the night sky to life for the children.
Consider how many Songs / Poems /Art can you think of to connect us with the Night Sky? For example: Look up President Michael D Higgins’ “Stardust”
I love to connect the Arts to my lessons and often use music, paintings or poetry as a stimulus for a lesson. I loved thinking about this topic and how many songs etc connect us to the sky.
One of the songs which popped into my head in an earlier module is Somewhere Out There by James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt . The opening verse makes me think of the night sky and the stars and moon that shine on our world
Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight
Someone’s thinking of me and loving me tonight
Somewhere out there someone’s saying a prayer
That we’ll find one another in that big somewhere out thereI also love both the artwork by Vincent Van Gough The Starry Night and the subsequent song by Don McLean Vincent Starry Starry Night.
A song that the children are familiar with and would work well as a stimulus is Counting Stars by One Republic Also A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay is a song that the children love.
A couple of years ago my class learned Rocket Man by Elton John while learning about space and satellites. The children loved learning this song and I think that it would work well when learning about the sky.
A poem we read when I was in secondary school by Gerard Manley Hopkins, called The Starlight Night begins with the line Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies. As a child and still as an adult I find the night sky fascinating and love to teach about and encourage and hopefully inspire children to enjoy it and feel the sense of wonder it holds.
I love the idea of a nature walk to investigate your school’s biodiversity and to provide a stimulus for the children to begin work on this topic.
How you would incorporate the needs of nocturnal species, especially those that rely on dark skies into school biodiversity plans?
I believe that the children in my class would be very inspired by this topic and be keen to incorporate the needs of nocturnal species into our school biodiversity plan. Many of the children have taken part in a local Bat walk organised in April/May by our local Teagasc & Irish Heritage run amenity.
To being I would brainstorm, mind map and do a KWL about the children’s understanding of the words nocturnal, biodiversity and light pollution.
I would break the class into small groups and ask them to use iPads to research what animals in Ireland are nocturnal and why do they need darkness and dark skies.
We would then research light pollution and watch a child friendly video explaining what it is and how it affects our nocturnal animals.
We would then work together to plan how our school could become more friendly to the creatures that wander our grounds and fly our skies at night.
If possible I would invite a speaker from our local Bat Walk to come and talk to the children and show the very interesting presentation that they use before the walks.
I love this lesson and the idea of comparing your night sky to rural areas. It is fantastic for the children to see real life comparisons.
Detail how light pollution is impacting your local area and how you would engage your learners to explore this.
To begin I would ask the class to go outside just before bed time and look at the night sky. The next morning we would have an class discussion on what they noticed, what they enjoyed about looking at the night sky.
Then I would ask them if they think the night sky and the number of stars seen is the same across all parts of our locality, i.e. the GAA pitch, our local village, the nearest town, the large port nearby – What happens to the star? Can you see as many stars at each of these locations.
Group discussion / brainstorming – I would ask the children to consider these questions and to come up with some ideas as to why we see the stars more clearly in different areas.
I would then do a mini lesson on light pollution – ensuring the children understand the concept.
After this I would let the children do some research on their local area and present a teach the teacher as to why and how light pollution affects, our night sky, human beings and wildlife / animals.
After all groups have presented their findings the class would devise a plan to reduce light pollution in our area / homes.
I love this lesson Aisling, I love the use of story for infants and the questioning in relation to shapes seen etc. This would be a very interesting lesson / set of lessons for this age group.
Create an observing plan for autumn that shows which planets are visible in the evening sky.
5th class would find this very interesting and different to normal homework so I think it would be a great activity that would lead to good classroom discussions.
To begin I would ask the children to tell me what they think or have observed about the evening sky / early nightfall. I would then ask them if they think we can see other planets in our sky at this time of night. We would make a list of planets they think we can see.
Next we would use iPad to explore stargazing apps such as SkyView, Star Walk, Stellarium. I would let the children get used to using these apps and then send links to parents for them to download should their child wish to use them for this active homework.
After this preparation work has been completed I would explain that our observation / investigation will need to be completed as homework as we are not at school at this time of night. The children would then create an observation notebook to record their observations.
After a class discussion on the best way to observe the planets we would make an instruction page at the front of our notebook and begin our stargazing / planet observation.
Plan: Before beginning observation ask your parents to help you find the cardinal directions N,S,E, W for your garden.
1. What we need: Your eyes, binoculars / telescope (if you have them at home)
2. How to choose the best night for this activity: a cloudless, clear night
3. Stay away from lights – turn off garden lights. (As our school is in the countryside most children will have a light free environment from which to observe the sky)
4. Begin by looking to the East & South to see what you can see in the sky.
5. Record observations on notebook.
6. Using an A3 sheet each child will draw the sky and record which planets they see over a set period of time.
If we repeat this activity once per week for September, October & November the children will have gathered much evidence about planets and their movement.
At the end of our observations I will ask the children what they have noted about the movement of the planets and what they have most enjoyed about this activity.
I love this lesson and the connection to History with Ancient Egyptians and Mayans. I think this is a well thought out plan with lots of interesting activities for the students tied up nicely by connecting to the history lesson by completing their own outdoor investigation.
Plan how your students could “observe and record the positions of the sun when rising and setting and at different times of the day”
I love the idea of doing this activity with my 5th class students. To begin we would discuss what they know about the movement of the sun and find out what they already know or have witnessed about where the sun is when they wake in the morning, go home from school or just before sunset. We will record this information on a KWL and return to it when we have completed our experiment.
We will then take a look at the compass and how to tell which direction it is pointing. We will learn about cardinal directions. We will then create an observation chart to help us record where the sun is at certain times of the day, 9:30am, 12:30am & 2:30pm. We will take a large plant pot with a long tube of plastic placed in the soil and put this in the yard, where we have a clear view of the sky.
The children will then use the compass to observe where the sun is at each of the 3 set times. They will mark this on their chart. They will then observe if there is any shadow created by the plastic tube, and if so what direction is is and is it long, short etc. Again they will record this on the chart.
Lastly we will take a photo using an iPad of the pot and the shadow. We will display these photos on a Sun Map in our classroom – where we will have a master observation chart to be filled in each day. We will repeat this activity for a full week and then investigate what we have learned about the movement of the sun, the direction of the sun and what we noticed about the sun at different times of the day.
I thought that I was very good at thinking about sustainability in how I live, shopping, travel, environmental factors etc. After completing this course I realise that there is much more I can do. Even to learn about MSC & ASC food labels and Origin Green, which I had never heard of. This will inform my shopping in the future.
Our school has many initiatives for being environmentally friendly. We are a Green School and we encourage children to be plastic free by using reusable water bottles etc. Our lights work on a sensor so should they be left on they will go off after a short period of time. However children are encouraged to turn off lights etc as we leave classrooms. We also take part in Picker Pals, an initiative to clean our environment. Living close to the sea, many children have taken the opportunity to collect rubbish from our local beaches.
I think that field trips and visits to the classroom by a local sustainability group which was established in our town in 2021 would be a good way to encourage children to think about minding our earth. I really loved how one of the videos in this module said that we didn’t inherit the planet from our parents, rather we borrowed it from our children. I think that this mindset is a good place to begin lessons on sustainability.
I love all the sustainability efforts by your school Gráinne. Getting the children involved while they are young will encourage them to live an environmentally and sustainable life as they grow up.
I also was unaware that there are 9 amino acids that our body needs but cannot produce them itself. Like Niamh I was aware that seafood is good for our nutrition and overall health but need to up my intake to ensure that this complete protein provides my body with the amino acids it requires.
Nutrition and health are key to many lessons in our school. As a healthy school we regularly have lessons on exercise, nutrition and food. Our student council monitor student attitudes to healthy eating and lifestyles and we regularly have whole school Active breaks led by our Active committee. As a result a lot of children have a healthy outlook on food and activity and have a lot of prior knowledge or the food pyramid, portion size and thinking about what they are eating. Therefore I think that my class have a good starting point to delve further into this area of learning and would be very engaged and interested in the overall topic of nutrition and how adding seafood to our diet is beneficial to our health.
I think that the ‘I Spy Supermarket’ activity is a really good idea to begin brining sustainability and a mindfulness to what we are consuming. I was unaware of the MSC and ASC labels prior to undertaking this course and certainly plan on using these labels when shopping myself. I also feel that by educating my class on this topic, this information will be filtered to the home and perhaps parents who are unaware will also become more mindful when shopping. These lessons encourage all of us to consider what we are eating and where is comes from which again leads to good global citizenship and playing our part for the environment.
I agree Mark, that the enthusiasm with which the participants in the videos delivered the information and their passion for their individual roles is so encouraging and would engage children of all ages. The lessons would encourage all who watch them to consider their own impact on our environment, our seas and our climate.
