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Hi Catherine
That’s a lovely lesson plan linking astronomy, art, creative writing and mythology. I love the way you have explained in such a simple understandable way that constellations are simply a work of human imagonation and that is illustrated really well in your lesson plan for children to create their own constellations and come up with a myth associated with them. South Kerry is a great place to be when thinking about lessons to do with the night sky. I hope the skies are clear so you can really appreciate the view.
Hi Niamh
Having some good quality video footage of Biodiversity in Ireland is great as a trigger for a lesson on Biodiversity. It is lucky therefore that we have a wealth of such footage from the many wildlife documentaries filmed in Ireland such as The Ireland’s Wild Islands documentary series on RTE player and short video clips such as the ones featured in this module. I haven’t yet seen the few short clips of Ireland filmed by David Attenborough as part of his Wild Isles series a few years ago but I’m sure they would be good to add to the list. Incorporating field trips to see biodiversity first hadn is of course very important and I like your idea of creating photo collages and fact files for each habitat visited.
Hi Sharon
We are still only seeing your responses to other people in the forums and not your original posts. Please repost each of your responses into the correct module forum.
Hi Sinead
I love your idea of using the aerial photograph of the school as both the starting point and end point of your outdoor map making exercise. As I generally do this exercise as an external visitor to a school and have a limited time with each class, I often don’t have time to do a full introduction of this kind but I can see how it would really enhance the map making to have the children think about materials in advance and decide what they are going to use to represent each feature. While the teachers often photograph the maps, I love the idea of the children taking photos of their own maps and comparing them with the aerial view on the whiteboard.
Hi Brian
I hope you enjoyed the course and got lots of inspiration for hands-on STEM in your classroom. Your idea for a class project based around crag cave incorporates so many different ideas and sounds like a wonderful way for the children to explore their local heritage. I love the idea of creating music, art and creative writing based on the caves and showcasing their learning about the local landscape, the formation of the limestone rock, erosion and deposition through the medium of creative performance. It would really give each pupil a chance to play to their own strengths and explore their interests.
Hi Margaret
Informative videos such as Home and the other videos in this module are a great way for educators to inform ourselves about the realities of climate change and to help us understand the science so that we can choose how best to impart that knowledge to children. I agree that you need to be very careful with what videos you choose to show to your pupils, as we need to strike a balance between informing and scaring. As you and others have said, selecting short clips or images from Home might be appropriate to use to promote discussion in your classroom and focussing on positive actions is a good way to approach the topic and help children to feel empowered.
Hi Aine
Thanks for your post. It is unclear which of the videos in this module you are referring to as your description doesn’t seem to fit any of them but your ideas for discussion around climate change and focussing on simple actions are good.
Hi Aine
Welcome to the course. I’m gald you liked the activities in this module. As you said, recording daily weather data is one of the best ways to build STEM skills such as recording, measuring and working with data. It also teaches the importance of observation and accurate reporting. After the initial set up of the weather station and pupils earning how to use the weather instruments and record the information, the project is easily carried on throughout the school year, with 2 pupils assigned each day to spend a few minutes checking the weather instruments. This long term data can then be used throughout the year for maths work or to tie in with various STEM and SEE lessons and the project can continue from year to year allowing comparisons. Introducing the Weather vs Climate later in the year when the children have been gathering their weather data for a few months will allow you to use that data to emphasise the difference between weather and climate especially when combined with online weather data for previous years. Pupils can look at individual days within a month and also averages and (e.g. 6th November was a very dry day but on average November was a wet month) and this can be used to show how climate is measured by gathering data like this over a period of 30 years or more and looking at averages.
Hi Aine
That sounds like a great use of the resource and a great lesson linking weather to careers and everyday life. As you highlighted yourself, to many of us the weather forecast is simply used to plan activities or decide whether to wear a coat, but for farmers, builders, fishermen and others, it is an important part of their career. These last 2 years we have got back into growing food at home and we also have a very shallow well so I find myself checking the weather forecast everyday wondering when the rain is going to finally come but I don’t rely on my garden to feed me. I can only imagine what it is like for farmers and commercial growers having to keep crops watered. Your focus on careers is a lovely way to connect STEM with everyday life.
Hi Majella
This is a great question. As you said, it is important for children to see that Climate Change is something that affects us all and that it is not something that only happens far away. Collecting their own rainfall data and comparing it to Met Eireann rainfall data is a great way to involve your pupils in hands on investigation and also relates their experience to that of the meteorologists responsible for gathering data. To relate it to climate, you will need to look at past rainfall data over a period of 3o years or more and this will not only give children the opportunity to see how gathering daily rainfall data contributes to our overall understanding of climate and climate change but also allows them to see if rainfall amounts have changed much over time. Looking at phtographs and maps would also allow them to llom at other possible reasons for flooding such as increased building or hard surfaces or changes to the course of a river.
Hi Denise
Welcome to the course. I love your idea of integrating the Day and Night in the World activity with shadow art which is a lovely way to explore the sun and light. Recoding sunrise and sunset and calculating the time changes is a great maths activity but also gives children a greater understanding of the world around them. Using this to talk about solstices and equinoxes is a great lead in to learning about the Celtic calendar and ancient peoples, and how people’s lives in the past were governed by the movement of the Earth around the sun even though they didn’t have our present scientific understanding of astronomy.
Hi Lorraine
I like your ideas for incorporating maths, Gaeilge and even drama into the ESERO Day and Night in the World activity. I can imagine the children incorporating the globe and torch into a dramatic exploration of time zones around the world. You had talked about the children explaining what they have learned to others, which is a greta way to check their understanding of the topic and doing this through drama would be a lovely way to integrate subjects. I hope you enjoy the rest of the course and find lots more inspiration for both intergrated STEM and cross curricular learning.
Hi Eimear
That sounds like a great lesson using Stellarium to study the night sky. I like the structured approach where you introduce questions to draw out their prior knowledge of stars and constellations and get them thinking about what they know and would like to know. The idea of showing them the basics of Stellarium while introducing more prompt questions will demonstarte how to use the programme and make them curious to explore more and the template to structure their exploration is a great idea. I love the idea of repeating the classwork at home with their families to find a different constellation and learn something new. This moves the learning from group work in school to individua l exploration at home with the added challenge of demonstrating the software to parents. This will hopefully encourage at least some of the children to continue their exploration of the stars at home so allowing occassional time over the next few weeks or months for pupils to share their discoveries with the class would be a nice way to follow up.
Hi Richard
It is great that you have a range of habitats around the school that you can use for biodiversity surveys and comparison of different habitats. Adding the lighting surveys adds another dimension that will get the children discussing the various reasons why some habitats support more or different species than others and whether light pollution might be a factor. While you can’t see nocturnal species during the daytime the children can learn about them and discuss their needs. I’m glad you found the resources in this module useful for learning about nocturnal animals. There is such a welath of online resources now about Irish wildlife and it is great to make use of them in the classroom. I love how the idea of the child’s observation of beetles banging off the window turned into a class investigation into Maybugs.
Hi Catherine
That sounds like a great lesson on map making. I love the reference to your Lego model when expliaing the bird’s eye view and it is always great to make connections with previous STEM projects. Pointing out the main features that should appear on your map and form part of the key is a great idea as it will get the children thinking about how to represent these features and the continued prompt questions once you return to the classroom is a also important. Questions such as is the shed bigger or smaller than the water butt may seem obvious but it is a reminder to the children to think about the relative sizes and shapes of objects on their map which is a precursor to thinking about scale in older classes. A reference back to your Lego might help here such as if this large Duplo brick here represents the school, what size piece might we use to represent the compost bin? I also like your plans for integrating Google Maps and Streetview into the lesson.
