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HI Katie,
I think this is a really worthwhile question to ask. Children need to be reminded and taught about the effect of litter in the environment. This is such a real world problem that children need to be equipped with the appropriate language to be able to encourage and challenge people/family who litter in the sider environment. Their projects would act as a reminder to our local community that it is not someone else’s job to pick up after you.
The research question I would pose to my class would be ‘How does the weather affect the plants and animals in our school garden’. On trying to come up with a research question our school recently installed an outdoor classroom and enclosed garden area. This would be the perfect question for younger children to take full advantage of our new space.
I would start by reading the story Sunshine by Cassie Mayer. This will introduce the idea that weather changes in a simple informative way. There are also plenty of pictures for the children to engage with and ask questions. In the first week, I would set up a simple chart we can fill in as a class, we would observe the weather in the morning and afternoon for five days and see if we notice any changes. This will help them get a sense that the weather changes often.
After spending a week discussing the weather indoors through stories, songs and observations I would then introduce the idea of the outdoor garden. I would pose the question of what things we would hope to find in the outdoor garden. Using these responses I would then pose the question what effect would the weather have on the different plants and animals in our garden. I would put them in groups with a tablet for taking pictures, a magnifying glass and a chart for ticking off any animals and plants the might find.
After investigating the outdoors on a dry day I would wait for a wet day to go out and explore the garden again. Can the children see any changes to the plants and animals. With this research I would make a big poster for display where children can write/draw their findings.
Hi Niamh, Yes I think that this is a powerful tool that we should equip our children to be able to use. It will enable to ask questions about real life issues and make their learning more relevant to them.
I used the Satellite tracker to track the satellites:
It detected the following satellites passing over Ireland:
1. Starlink-30512
2. Starlink-33548
3. Starlink-22514. Eirsat-1
5. Starlink -1506
All these satellites hold important information but I think I would be inclined to study the Eirsat Satellite as it was developed in Ireland by UCD and involved many students. There is also a lot of footage on you tube that will help children to visualise the Satellite from it’s conception to it’s launch in December 2023. The satellites main experiment is to measure Gamma Ray Bursts in the solar system. This may lead children to question what else can Satellites do e.g. observe what is happening to Earth from space. This would allow to explore Climate Resilience especially when equipped with solid data that can used to show how changes can be made.
Hi Jessica,
Getting children in reading the packaging and looking for ways to reduce single use plastic is a great way to encourage children to have their own climate action plan. I often encourage my children to pick up one or two pieces of plastic or waste to in or recycle. I think if children think (and do) about this when they are at beach or out for a walk it would make them feel that they can do their bit to help save the environment.
The clips in Lesson 3 will act as a stark reminder to adults and children that the climate change crisis is real. I would be careful not introduce to many horrible truths to children (straight away) as this could potentially scare them or begin to judge the actions of their family who may already be doing their best to manage a household and pay bills.
Firstly, by adopting the weather vs climate pdf and encouraging children to become climate reporters children will be able to see that weather/climate is different throughout the world. I would also do the experiments Nose High Up in the Sky and Earth Under the Lid. This should act as a good and not too harsh introduction to the climate change crisis.
Throughout these lessons I would question what things we can do at home and what things should our government do to help families and schools make these changes e.g. solar panels on schools, free use of Brown bins, more education on food waste etc.
I would then show clips or for older children the full version of HOME and encourage them to show their family and friends. I think the greatest impact this film and many other clips e.g. Greta Thunberg talking at the G20 summit is to get children talking both in school and at home. I would set them a challenge to do an audit of their carbon footprint with their families and look for ways in order to reduce their footprint. This could be presented in the format of a digital home video, a presentation or simply pictures of what families are doing to make a difference.
I would be realistic and point out that not every family can swap from oil heating to a heat pump overnight but that we can e.g. eat what is on our plate, eat more vegetables and less meat, turn off lights and appliances when not in use, walk/cycle to school and encourage parents to recycle. In our school we use the motto reduce, reuse and recycle so I would encourage children to look for ways in order to do this e.g. Christmas and Halloween clothing drive, to wash their yoghurt pots (for example) before going home and recycle sensibly.
HI Annette,
I like how you have broken down activity step by step. I think that the TEAL tool may be too complex and that a child friendly summary or screenshot would help. I love the idea of creating a comic strip this would really engage learners express a problem and find a solution. They may even develop a class superhero that is powered through renewable energy and no to keep clear of fossil fuels!
After completing activities 1 and 2 of the Climate vs Temperature pdf, I would move on to activity 3. This activity facilitates children to be able to use and share their knowledge from activity 1 and 2 and begin to look for ways to apply their learning in everyday life.
I would use the PAxi video to start the lesson, this will act as a hook to discuss and questions what are greenhouse gases and what impact are they having on our planet. I would also create a Greenhouse gas example that the children can look at (if time permits I would encourage them to make their own Greenhouse model).
I would then set the children a project to explore and research a country and how it is be effected by climate change. I set them a task of researching and designing a presentation to communicate this back to the class ad the wider school community. I would set them the challenge to come with one way to make a change and combine all these ways into a poster for the children to spread the word on dangers of climate change and what little actions we can take to make a big difference.
Hi Jessica, I like the idea of enabling the children to present their data to their parents. This would really give them something to aim towards and allow them to become mini scientists. Weather is the most talked about subject in the world and the children being able to discuss it with scientific authority would make them feel valued and important.
The resource ‘Nose high up in the sky’ to foster an interest in weather and weather patterns in the children’s local area. Often when children are introduced to the weather it is through the medium of television and whilst informative they often struggle to see how it relates to them. By facilitating children to enquire, predict, build and test their own weather instruments children can see first hand how weather is constantly changing. I would start by encouraging the children to try and figure out what all the proverbs have in common (I would give children a selection to read), I would then get them to question are these true? have they ever heard any of them?. This will spark a good conversation about weather and climate and may even enable children to discuss the differences in weather in Ireland vs where they or their parents are originally from(we may even learn new proverbs!).
I would then break children into groups to make their own rain gauge and anemometer. They can also set up a diary to record their findings over the course of a week.
This lesson can bring in many elements of STEM: For older children they can work out the average rainfall per day and develop a digital chart to show the weather pattern over the course of a week. Younger children can make graphs to show their findings. Children can also look to enhance or add other instruments for weather measurement e.g. adding a wind chime to record the sound (is it constant or sparse).
For children in 5th/6th class, children could pair with a school in a different country and discuss differences in weather and climate in their country and see what weather patterns they produce versus their own findings.
How you would engage your learners to explore biodiversity in your local area and the possible impacts of light pollution on local biodiversity:
I would first use the video What is biodiversity to introduce the idea to the children in my class. After watching the video I would discuss the need for human space versus nature space. Is there anything we can do, to provide more space to aid our local habitats?
• Why are plants and animals important?
• Do they help the environment?
• Do they help us?This time I would show the more detailed video ‘What is biodiversity’. This should cement home how important biodiversity is to humans. It will also highlight what humans are doing to threaten biodiversity and how this is having an adverse effect on our environment, rising costs, adverse weather conditions etc. As a class we can then come up with the threats to biodiversity and design a poster to highlight these threats. The children can display these posters in school to raise awareness of biodiversity in our school.
In my next lesson, I would focus on local nocturnal animals using the Long Eared Bat video. I would discuss how nocturnal animals adapt to their environment. This should spark a curiosity to investigate their local area. For homework I would ask them to take a walk with an adult in the dark or to investigate in their back garden. Can they spot any nocturnal animals e.g. bats, moths? How are you able to see in the dark? Is there any natural light? How many street lamps and examples of artificial light can you see?
To Investigate: I use one of the starter questions in Esero framework for enquiry. These questions are easy to investigate at home. They can then predict the outcome and repeat the same question a number of times to make sure it is a fair test.
Children can then interpret the data: Does artificial light effect our ability to see in the dark?
Is it a positive or negative effect?
Is it easy to adjust to changes in lighting?
What about nocturnal animals?
Problems caused by excess light?We could also play the bat and moth game to show how people can navigate by sounds.
At the end of these series of lessons: We can begin to design how we can make our own biodiverse area.
1. Survey out local area.
2. Make a plan of things we need to consider is there an area in our school that can aid biodiversity.
3. Make bat boxes, bird boxes and look at how we can change the lighting around the school.
4. Evaluate: Have our actions helped?Hi Sarah,
Great idea to use a webcam in your school. This will really bring nature into the classroom and drive home the need for greater biodiversity in our school and our communities.
Describe how you would complement a version of ‘Design your own Dark Sky Place’ in your school/classroom?
As my school is located in quite a built up urban area I think investigating and designing a dark sky place would be very beneficial. There are a lot of objectives that can be achieved by implementing this project. My aim would be for children to have a better understanding of light pollution particularly in such a built up urban area such as ours, nocturnal animals and the natural environment as a whole and ways in which we can reduce light pollution in our school and local area.
The school has quite a large open space and we are often visited by nocturnal animals. In a school I worked in, we put up a webcam to film the comings and goings of animals in the school grounds. As part of this project I would love to install a few webcams to track any activity at night and I feel that by doing a project such as this would strengthen my case!
As suggested I would start with the idea of Dark Sky Places and get children to come up with what they think and do they actually think that they exist? I would imagine with older children that this could be a source of some debate e.g. why are they needed? Is the sky not dark enough? Would this have any effect on the environment? Is light necessary? For younger kids, I would probably first introduce nocturnal animals and pose the question: what habitat would be most suitable for them? Why might nocturnal animals live in towns rather than the countryside? In towns (urban areas) what factors might prevent nocturnal animals living as they should?
Investigation: For older children I would direct them to websites that explain and highlight drak sky places. I would challenge them to come up with 5 reasons why Dark Sky Places are important and who for.
For younger kids I might use a stimulus e.g. a fox teddy bear and get children to come up with ways in which we can help our mascot live in our environment.
We would then research the school grounds and decide where the best place for a Dark Sky Place. If we were to stand here at night time, what would we expect to see/hear/smell/touch?
With older children I might also segway into looking at the stars and the constellations and add this eventually to our design phase. For younger children I might pose the question: would we be able to see the North Star? What is the North Star?
Design Phase: I would divide my children into different groups: Nocturnal animals/Stars/Moon. I would ideally create a dark sky in my classroom with a view to blacking out the windows to use as a roleplay area. I would use torches and illuminous stars to replicate a star sky place.
To end the project I would arrange an evening for parents to observe a dark sky place… I would do this mid winter to achieve as dark a sky as possible. I would love to tie it into observing the Observe the Moon event on September 14th but I feel that the moon will be too bright! The event could also incorporate poems and songs inspired by our night sky.
