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Hi Michael,
I really like this idea of empowering our students with knowledge of the things we can change rather than leaving them feeling helpless and anxious. I know I myself find the thoughts of global warming and all the damage I am doing daily to our planet quite terrifying, so I think it is so important that we mind our students and don’t overwhelm them!
Home is such a beautiful feat of cinematography, the footage is really spectacular but it also really hits home how delicate and interweaved our ecosystems are. I have to say I found it quite upsetting to see how much damage, we as humans are doing to our incredible planet. The deforestation in particular really hit home for me. In my younger days I did lots of travelling and saw incredible rainforests and this made me think will my children and my students have the same opportunities to experience those places that I had. Then it leads me to thinking about all the damage I have done in air travel getting to see those paces!! I think I would watch this film with 6th class but have them prepped beforehand with what is within our power to change as there are a number of children who are quite anxious about climate change.
I agree Elspeth that the Paxi video is a great resource. I actually hadn’t thought about pre teaching the language in it. I think that is a great idea as it will give the students a greater understanding of the video. I also thought thought that was a really nice idea about bringing the students into a poly tunnel. I have one myself and it never hit me that many students may never have been in one!
I thought the Paxi video was really good. It explained in child friendly terms what green house gases do and how too many of them are changing our climate. I also really liked how it explained to children what we can do to help prevent the release of too many of these green house gases and that there is hope for the future. With 5th or 6th class I would introduce this topic by talking about what we already know about climate change, then we would watch the Paxi video as a class and discuss it. I would then introduce the tool for predicting future temperatures. I would show the students how to use it and then let them play around with it on their chromebooks. In our next lesson I would put the students into small groups of 3 or 4 and ask them to pick a country and look at how temperature has changed over time. I would ask them to discuss in their groups how this may or may not change the quality of peoples lives, their daily activities etc. The students can share their thoughts with the rest of the class at the end of this lesson and we can have a whole class discussion.
Hi Seán, I think that is a lovely way of applying activity 1 to your class. I like how you differentiated for the different abilities in your class, challenging students to write their own sentences or cut out a printed copy, or even you could have copies with words missing and they add in their own. I also like how you allow for debate at the end of the lesson, thus bringing in other cross curricular areas!
Having read the paper Unravelling STEM: Beyond the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (Liston 2018) I found it interesting and enlightening that all four STEM subjects would be intermingled and integrated rather than taught in a stand alone fashion. It focused on the importance of challenging the children’s critical and creative thinking and innovation and provide opportunities for them to engage in this area. It has opened my eyes in particular when teaching maths, that I should be integrating this with the other STEM subjects rather than teaching it as a stand alone subject. This will also make it easier to make maths more real life and playful!
I really liked Activity 2: Weather Detectives. I thought this would be a great activity to do with 5th or 6th class. If I was to do it I think I would do it as an autumn, winter, spring, summer activity. I would pick mid September to mid October, Jan- Feb March- April and May to June and do it as a year long project mapping the temperature changes throughout the year. It would be great for the students to map it and see real world applications for graphs.
