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Lots of songs here that I hadn’t considered at all. It’s funny how familiar songs and lyrics don’t stand out as being related to the night sky until someone else mentions them. Thank you.
The night sky appears in lots of songs, poems and art. I didn’t fully realise how many there were until I researched it for this question. Children’s rhymes that would be familiar to me are Twinkle, twinkle little star and Hey Diddle Diddle. I would often say these at home without really recognising what connection they have to the night sky. Some songs that stand out are Coldplay’s Sky Full of Stars and Frank Sinatra’s Fly me to the Moon. They encourage thoughts about the night sky and the other planets. Reach for the Stars is another one that encourages people to dream big and believe in themselves that anything is possible. A particular poem whose imagery stood out to me since I learned it myself in primary school is The Listeners by Walter de la Mare. From the start of the poem when the traveller is knocking on the moonlit door, the picture that my mind creates of the dark place only lit by the moon still gives me shivers.
Bats are the nocturnal species that I would be interested in including in a school biodiversity plan. As the school is in the countryside and has old buildings, providing bat boxes around different locations on the building itself would be helpful for nesting bats. As they hibernate for most of the school year, there would be little impact on the children if they were scared/worried about them being out in day time. Planting night scented flowers, like night scented stock and evening primrose around the school garden would help attract insects so the bats have more to eat. It will also be important to assess the lighting on the school grounds and surrounding areas to ensure the lighting is far enough away from the bat boxes, and from the night scented flowers, that the bats are not confused.
From a school plan point of view, lighting, providing bat boxes, provision of night scented flowers, and perhaps a visit from the local park ranger for a talk on bats would be included.I like the connection you have made to WWII and the lights. I also like how you have mentioned about lighting being important for safety. When the winter nights pull in and it is dark going to school, and dark going home from school, lights are important, especially in an industrial area like you mentioned.
My students live and attend school in a built up area where light pollution is definitely impacting the local area. For example, in a local car park at night, I have often heard and seen a lonely robin chirping in the dark. It is quite upsetting because surely it is impacting the robins quality of life, being awake all the time and not getting any rest.
Lots of the students participate in GAA and the local club and pitches during the winter are lit up with flood lights. It will be an interesting investigation to document the different colours of lights and the different types of lights that are in the surrounding areas, determining which lights are necessary and if any could be removed or changed to motion sensors. Documenting the area and the lights during the day, and again in the evening during the winter is something that I feel would engage the children. It is something that we could present to the local club officials and see if they are prepared to consider any changes to the lighting going forward. I like the idea that being able to create change could help inspire the children to continue caring for their environment and locality as they get older.Thank you for this information. I will be copying it to make a display for my classroom for the year.
I enjoyed the activity describing how to make a model of the Plough constellation. I have a senior class this year so I would give them the opportunity to understand how to make this, and perhaps model it for them with materials at the top of the class, or in small groups. I would give them the materials needed, and the information needed to create the same style model of the stars in Orion’s Belt. They would plot the stars on paper, with cardboard, string and sellotape. I am curious myself how this would look and am looking forward to making the resource in class. I would display the models around the classroom on the ceiling. I would give some children straws to stick smaller and bigger stars onto so we could experience the brightness of the stars on the walls, to give another perspective.
I love this idea for a travel journal. A great way to incorporate more of the curriculum into a STEM lesson.
I reviewed ESERO 30 Day and Night in the World. I think this is a lovely lesson for my class which really highlights how people in different parts of the world experience day and night at different times.
I would also support the lesson and engage children at the beginning by asking if they have family (cousins, aunts, uncles etc) in other countries, and if they get to speak to them often depending on their location. At least one that I know of in my class for September has family in Australia, so this would be a good example. Using live webcam footage of beaches or cities around the world also gives the opportunity to see for themselves how the different places have different times, with day and night being evident. At the end of the lesson, I would show a world map and ask the children to pick a country or timezone and we can check for webcams and use our knowledge from this lesson to determine if it is day time or night time before we confirm it online. I would incorporate maths skills here too, and see if they could use the lines of longitude to figure out the exact time in the location they chose.