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I like Carrie’s idea of figuring out how much rainfall in their area over the last 100 years. I would be interested in seeing the results in my own area. Obviously using the Met Eireann tool will give us the longer term information, but the project of setting up the rain gauge will allow the class to track short term. I can see this being very motivating for the children and it is a very varied and interactive tasks, creating a good learning experience. This will also bring a lot of relativity to the Met Eireann results and make them more real and meaningful. It also gives them a good sense of a weather pattern in their rain gauge station and climate with the longer term results from Met Eireann website.
What is the best way to encourage more students to walk, cycle or scoot to school?
Theme: Reducing transport emissions.
Focus: Sustainable travel.
Feasible: Students can conduct surveys, count travel methods and test awareness campaigns.
To encourage the children to participate, begin by discussing ‘the why’ – walking, cycling and scooting to school. The benefits to the environment, our health and our community. Invite students to share how they currently travel to school, run a school survey to school. Identify what might make active travel easier or more enjoyable. Explore the barriers to active travel. Then as groups they would come up with solutions and activities to address these issues (walking bus, cycling sense training, school bike zone, etc) Then create posters or campaigns to encourage sustainable travel. Involving each child with an active role in collecting data, sharing ideas, presenting solutions etc, they would feel a sense of ownership and understand that their actions can make a positive difference, also motivating them to make that difference.
I thought similar to Deirdre, every minute there was loads of different satellites travelling over Ireland. I think showing this to children will really amaze them to see how many satellites are actually in space. Groups can do short research on different types of satellites in space and feedback to the class so as to give everyone a sense of their uses, as it is so vast and varied. Then I think it’s good to pick a hook satellite that may interest them such as the International Space Station ISS. As the ISS has so much content, videos and ideas to talk about. Tracking this will then give them the skills to track and observe a satellite. Then from the earlier research they can track a satellite that maybe of interest to them.
The five latest satellites I tracked going over Ireland were the following
SL-R/b(2) – A spent Soviet rocket left in Earth orbit after launching, now being tracked as space debris.
SL-8 R/B – A discarded Soviet KOSMOS launch vehicle, it remains in low Earth orbit as more space debris.
SL-16 R/B – Another spent Soviet Zenit launch vehicle, this is tracked as a larger piece of space debris.
H-2A R/B – The discarded rocket body is from a Japan launch vehicle which delivered its payloadt.
COSMOS 1933 – Finally another Soviet satellite. It is a military reconnaissance satellite launched in 1988 as part of the (ELINT) satellite program.
It was interesting to note that 4 of the 5 satellites that had most recently passed over Ireland were Soviet. Also, that 4 of the 5 were essentially space junk and that they were rockets used to deliver other material/payloads to other projects. It made me think about should we have a way of bring this material down? Is there a danger to this being up there? Should we be using space as somewhere to put our junk? Just some of the thoughts that this exercise provoked.
I really like some of the ideas Robyn had for her classes age group.
The film works as a great resource to spark interest and hook children in. There is so much beauty in the movie that it makes a lot of sense to focus on how we can maintain this beauty.
Focusing on activities that promote the vision of the movie to the children on a scale that they can understand makes so much sense. The activities such as a scavenger hunt, planting seeds, mini recycling station helps bring to life their dialy habits and connect them to wonder and beauty of the environment.
I think Home has a really strong visual impact. Compared to a book seeing the visuals and videos of how beautiful our planet is but also the destruction and devastation man is causing it will really hit home for children. It is a great resource to have and will come in very beneficial during rainy days. The children can link watching a section of the movie at break time to a classroom activity after break. These activities can be from walking debates about climate, action plans on personal change, class discussions on climate change topics, english writing on describing what they saw, art on creating beauty that is been devastated etc.
Other interesting points I took from other videos included the Paris agreement and what the world has actually agreed as regards climate change. Irelands steps to be taken to follow the Paris agreement in Ireland’s climate action plan.
2 major stats that stood out to me were:
CO2 emissions in Ireland 8.8 metric tons per capita in 2017 way above other countries that are as low as 0.1 metric tons per capita.
Oil and energy companies spending €200million a year to delay and block climate policy change.
I agree Evelyn I found activity 3 very easy to follow with the video and predicition tools being very effective. I think looking at the real-life examples of how climate change affects different parts of the world is a great idea. Using art, drama and presentations it would be great to see the children expand on what that impact might be and create a picture for all their fellow students to understand. I think moving global warming from a concept and idea to real world visual applications will paint a strong picture to the children on how important this is.
The paxi video was a very good resource. To begin with it was engaging and interesting. It also put across it’s ideas very effectively and clearly. Explain concepts at a child’s level. It also gave a really clear picture of where we are at again in a way that a child could understand. Again the resource allows to teach across many areas of the curriculum together in a way that is very real and meaningful for the children. The hope is that this will result in a great impact on the children. This ties in well with the new primary school framework that highlights the importance of global citizenship. The activities also progress through the Curious Minds/ESERO framework for Inquiry and offers plenty of opportunity for collaboration, investigation and real actions.
I think there is a lot of merit in bringing the subjects together rather than teaching them separately. In reality this happens far more than we give ourselves credit for and maybe need to lean into opportunities this presents itself in. Bringing Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths together with hands-on activities makes the learning more real and meaningful. On top of this it helps them develop other skills such as critical thinking, teamwork, etc. I like your idea of using activities 1 and 2 to compare local weather with another area in Ireland. It gave me the idea of linking with another teacher I know elsewhere in the country with the same class age so classes can share results. This will create a shared responsibility, anticipation and connection. The task in general brings meaning to maths skills like averaging, measuring and graphing. From the module I took that a lot of the learning in the junior classes is around awareness and language. Being aware of the weather station, that it shows parts of the weather and what parts it shows is huge progress for those ages. In time when the have the maths skills in those areas recording and analysing can come in.
Setting up a met station on school grounds. Where gives a fair representation of the school’s weather, flat ground, unshaded and not sheltered, etc. Where is accessible to students, near classrooms, visible so children are aware of it, safe from damage ball games etc. What can be made in school (rainfall gauge, windspeed) and what needs to be purchased (thermometer, barometer). Can we put the results somewhere where all the children can see them and also using diagrams that are appropriate to various ages. Using this data we can identify weather patterns. We have a screen that presents our solar panel input and energy output. We can create a second slide on this screen to present the weather data, as this screen is all ready a centre for data in the school. This activity has elements of maths, science, geography, engineering and art in it. Getting my class to explain different elements of the weather station to other classes. Then they can liaise with other classes on particular tasks each class can record from the weather station. This is a way of involving various classes across the school.