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I love this idea Joanne and how it is linked to your locality. There are some great examples of hands on learning and it is integrated throughout the currciulum.
Research question: Has increased rainfall affected our local flora and fauna?
I would pose this question to the children in relation to North Bull Island nature reserve, which is local to our school, and an UNESCO Biosphere reserve. The children would have worked on researching Bull Island beforehand and identified the local wildlife and have become familiar with the different types of fauna and flora, i.e. wild orchids through internet research, pictures and videos of the reserve. The children would then be brought on a field trip to the reserve to gather information and identify the plant and animal life they have been investigating. Afterwards, the children could compile a list of questions to be researched and presented as part of their group project, i.e. can increased rainfall affect the growth of orchids. I would model some ‘good’ questions to help them with this. Their projects could be presented to the school to inform the other students of the significance of climate change and raise awareness on what we can do to help.It is amazing to see Ireland being represented in space with Eirsat-1 and I think it would be exciting for children to learn about this to know that being involved in space science and studies is not inaccessible to them.
List 5 satellites that have passed Ireland recently.
1. International Space Station: This is a satellite that passes over Ireland frequently. I have tracked this satellite before with a class when we were exploring the ISS through our English reader. They were very interested to know about how astronauts lived there. It is often visible from Earth.
2. Starlink satellites: These are satellites used to provide internet access worldwide and people may be familiar with these when gaining internet access in their homes.
3. Eirsat-1: This satellite was made in Ireland and its aim was to encourage students to undertake studies in space science and technology and promote a career in space. It launched in December 2023.
4. NOAA-19: This is used for weather forecasting.
5. Hubble Telescope: I had heard of this before and have often seen images of it. It is used to take images of space and Earth alike to aid scientists in their studies of the universe.That’s a good point about sharing the information with parents. I know there are children that would be quite anxious about this topic and therefore it would cause them distress if the video content was not presented to them in an appropriate manner.
The film Home is a beautiful visual piece with a stark message for viewers. The main message of the film cannot be ignored and while important I think the film content is more suitable for the senior classes, as it is slightly frightening and hard hitting. I would use this video to put into context the seriousness of climate change and to start a discussion on how we could be doing more. It would lead to some of the following points: pollution, deforestation, research of renewable energy resources that are being used, initiatives in the local community and in Ireland as a whole, identifying what the stance is at national and international level on climate change. The Climate Aid 2020 video was also very profound, and the children would be familiar with David Attenborough and therefore I feel be responsive to it. In the classroom I think the topic of climate change should be handled with care and caution and these videos should be used in an informative and thoughtful way to allow children to gain an insight into how they can help our environment.
Hi Lorraine. I really like the idea of a field trip to look at how their locality is responding to climate change. It would allow the children to gain real world knowledge and possibly assist these intitiatives if possible.
The Paxi Greenhouse gases video is informative and engaging, explaining clearly how global warming is occurring. The TEAL website was something I had not heard of before and is a really useful resource for the classroom. With Activity 3, I would use the Paxi video as the introduction to explain what the greenhouses gases are and to generate discussion on the ways people are harming the environment and contributing to the greenhouse effect. The children would be given the opportunity to explore the TEAL tool and compare different locations around the world, with a specific focus on Ireland. To enhance their learning and report their findings the children would write a piece for the school newsletter informing people of their findings, and offer suggestions and ways people can do their best to reduce their contribution to global warming. They could also use their results from their weather station to support the information.
Hi Laura. I also like that it can be integrated with Gaeilge- from completing short sentences in the younger classes to giving a small presentation in the older classes about weather/climate and the difference. It is very beneifical for their vocabulary development too.
Weather or Climate
After studying the activities as part of this resource, I would use these to guide the children’s learning of the difference between climate and weather. After completing the temperature investigation in activity 2, I would ask the children to investigate rainfall and wind speed also. Our school has the resources to do this, and each group of children would be given a span of time of when to carry out their research, write up their findings and present it to the class. To develop their learning further, some children could design their own rain gauge or anemometer. This would be an excellent means of integrating STEM in the classroom. It also provides opportunities to integrate Gaeilge. The children could put together a short presentation about the difference between weather and climate, using maps, photos and videos to assist them.
Nose High Up in the Sky
This resource looks to be fun and engaging, offering lots of informative videos on the difference between weather and climate. It fosters critical thinking and problem solving which is very important especially with the older classes.