Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Fiona
I’m glad you enjoyed the “Nose High Up in the Sky” resource and are hoping to use it in your classroom. I agree that studying and recording the weather, especially with the aid of weather instruments that the children make for themselves is a great integrated STEM lesson that incorporates lots of the science skills. As you said, their own predictions about the weather will not always be correct and their weather instruments won’t give precise readings but this can all lead to discussion about why this is so. Also by going through the process of making them and recording their own weather observations, the children will learn a lot about what it takes to record the weather and how this data needs to be gathered over a long period of time to get information on climate patterns and climate change.
Hi Dawn
It is fantastic that you have gained so much from this module that you can apply in your STEM teaching from resources to teach the curriculum strands to ideas for encouraging STEM skills. Your question for Climate Detectives is a good one but it might be difficult to find enough information on past records of plants and animals in your area. The National Biodiversity Data Centre that coordinates all of the biodiversity records relies very much on citizen science, so while we know that Climate Change is affecting the timing of flowering plants, the emergence of insect species and the migration of birds, most animals and plants are not recorded, so it is difficult to get enough data. Perhaps narrowing down your focus would help. Many of the bird species around Dublin Bay have been recorded over a number of years and migratory birds can be particularly susceptible to climate change so maybe restricting your project to migratory birds might be a good idea.
Hi Kieran
It is fantastic that you plan to use staff meeting time to share what you have learned about light pollution with your colleagues and to try to implement practical changes with regards to lighting in your school especially in your wildlife garden. Spreading the awareness throughout the classes in the school and then at home through monitoring of nocturnal species and light levels. Only last night, I came across an article about a chinese scientific study on the effects of light pollution on trees. They have discovered that in areas where street lights are on all night, the leaves on the trees are toughened as a defense mechanism, which makes them inedible to insects. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/artificial-night-sky-light-pollution-trees-insects.Using a visit to the National Reptile Zoo to learn about nocturnal and diurnal reptiles is a great idea as the children will be able to see the animals up close and then apply what they have learned to thinking about native animals that they may not be able to examine up close.
Hi Kieran
Those are some lovely creative ways to explore constellations with a combination of practical drawing activities and the use of Stellarium. I love the idea of recreating the constellations in chalk on the tarmac and using the iPads to create their own astronomy guides. There are great practical maths links there too as you have said and I’m sure measuring out angles and making sure to preserve the correct ratios when calculating distances between the points will be much more fun when done in large scale on the tarmac.
Hi Meadhbh
I love the idea of the class coming up with questions on the night sky and then using Stellarium to find the answers in smaller groups.
Hi Olivia
I love your idea of linking the topic of light pollution to your history lessons around World War 2 and the Glimmer Man. It is a really great way to introduce the topic and discuss the different reasons for preserving dark skies and the differences in light levels between the 1940s and the 202os and various periods in between. Discussions with older family members would really add to their understanding around this issue as many of the children have possibly never experienced a truly dark sky. Of course, as you said with family members working shift work discussions around the safety aspect of providing lighting are important and these can then lead to exploration on striking a balance and the different types of measures that can allow for outdoor lighting with minimal impact.
Hi Frances
Thank you for all of those links. You have some fantastic ideas there for art, music, dance and drama based on the Northern Lights and have done a great deal of research to find relevant contrasting video clips. I was fascinated by the idea of the music of the northern lights.
Hi Lisa
It is great to be able to tie your learning into events such as the supermoon and the partial lunar eclipse and as you said, it will be so much more meaningful for the children if you have learned about the moon in class prior to these events so they will know more about what they are seeing and be able to share that information with their parents when observing the moon at home in the evenings.
Hi Marie
You make a very good point there. Not only can we study individual artworks, songs and poems about the night sky to see how the artists saw the skies and to compare the experiences of different people in the past and in different locations and situations, but we can also look at the sheer volume of creative works based on the night sky and realise how important it is to us culturally as well as for our own health and that of other species to have dark skies.
Hi Emma
Encouraging your students to conduct night time observations on light pollution and to document, photograph or sketch what they saw is a good idea. They could include observations of the different types of lights, their numbers and colours, any nocturnal wildlife they have seen or heard, and also what stars they may have seen. As your pupils may be living in different areas, some more urban and some rural, light pollution levels are likely to vary so they can compare notes in class the next day to see how their experiences vary. This could lead to great discussions on the effects of light pollution. After then learning a little more about the types of light pollution and discussing general solutions, they might repeat their surveys and see what solutions would be necessary in their homes or local areas, such as turning off unnecessary lights, changing the colour of bulbs, shielding etc.
Hi Mairead
That is fantastic that you are already allowing wildflowers to grow naturally in your school by reducing mowing and you are so right that almost every school has the opportunity to do this even on a small scale. Not only are you helping to provide for pollinators and other insects and also for birds, but you are also providing a valuable learning experience for the children. and hopefully also spreading the message home to families about how to protect and preserve our native wildlife.
Hi David
That is a really great research question for Climate Detectives. It is focused on a local climate problem, offers great opportunities for data collection and is neither too broad nor too narrow. As part of your research, you could look into the work that is being done in other European cities to add more green spaces and reduce the urban heat island effect. As well as your field trips, it might be a good idea to see if you can replicate your temperature and air quality studies on a smaller scale in your school yard, if you have some suitable green spaces. The data collected from outside the school will be limited to times when you can get out and leave the school, but you could capture more data in school by simply leaving the classroom for a few minutes a day.
Hi Emma
I’m glad you enjoyed the satellite tracker app and I’m sure that the senior children in your school would have great fun finding out about what is passing overhead. When you really start to think about all the satellites that are orbiting above us, the problem of space junk becomes. I came across this website from the UK Natural History Museum that give some figures for space junk https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-space-junk-and-why-is-it-a-problem.html although I think these figures are out of date given the number of Starlink satellites being lauunched all the time. With the number of satellites being launched all the time we are not only cluttering up the night skies but in a world of finite resources, we are sending a lot of valuable metals and other mineral resources away from our planet and not retrieving them.
Hi Lauren
That’s a great research question. It is well defined and not too broad and you have a clear path for researching your question. Another tool that you might find very useful in your research and for lots of other application in the classroom is https://www.geohive.ie/ from the Ordnance Survey. It has different aerial photos from 1995 as well as more recent ones and old 6″ and 25″ maps which would be useful for seeing what your local area was like in the past.
Hi Emma
That’s a lovely idea to use the Paxi video as a pre-teaching tool for learning support before the topic of greenhouse gases is taught in class. The video itself is short but it can lead to lots of discussion around the topic of greenhouse gases. The TEAL tool would be great for older classes. You could start them off on some simple scenarios and see what they are able to discover for themselves.
