[Una Halpin]

Hi Fiona

Those are 2 great videos. The video of the astronaut jumping on different planets and moons would be a great accompaniment to the planetary tubes activity to help explain the difference between weight and mass. The other video on the Gravity well is a lovely one to demonstrate orbits. I was fascinated watching it and I’m sure it would be a great activity for your class to try out and video for themselves. For your own original posts in future modules add them as new posts at the bottom of the forum rather than as replies to other participants.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Nicole

I love your virtual travel journal idea. It is a great way to combine literacy with geography and STEM as the children have to research the different countries, use online maps and tools to explore time zones and use their own imaginations in their creative writing. You could perhaps assign different regions of the world to different students or allow them to pick from a list of countries so that a larger number of countries and timezones are represented, and they can share their work and learn from each other.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Lauren

Welcome to the course. I’m happy that you enjoyed Maeve Liston’s paper and that the ideas fit with what is already happening in your classroom. Creating a weather station is beneficial in lots of ways. As you said, it’s great for teaching the difference between weather and climate and also for explaining how weather data is gathered for forecasting and also for compiling over a long period of time to establish changing climate patterns. The correct use and reading of a thermometer is also an important skill that could be useful for future science investigations.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Niall

That is a good question on a local climate issue. You have listed many of the ways in which Climate Change is affecting Dublin’s weather and you have also given some great examples of actions that the class can take to make a difference. For a Climate Detectives project, you need to think about how to get the children involved in gathering data. You might get them to look up data on past temperatures, wind and rainfall and see how they have changed over the past 3o years or more. A nice practical activity to go along with this might be getting the children to make their own weather instruments and record weather in the school as in module 1. This could lead to discussions on the difference between weather and climate and how climate change can cause changes in the expected weather patterns.  It can also help to explain how weather and climate data are gathered.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Niall

Those are some great simple ideas there. As you said, it is important to introduce the topic of Climate Change in an age appropriate way. For the younger children, using story books and simple explanations is a great idea. I also like the way you have included the topic through simple everyday actions. As everything we do contributes in either a positive or negative way to Climate change it should be part of our everyday lives and included in every part of the curriculum and you have outlined some great ways to do this. In the older classes, you can then move on to the explanations of what climate is and the science of climate change as you have outlined.

[Una Halpin]

Hi James

That sounds like a lovely lesson for your senior infants class using the yard to draw chalk shadows and the existing circle to demonstrate how the sundial works during the time that they are in school. Partnering with an older class is a great idea too to help the children with carrying out and understanding the tasks. I love the idea of the children making their own sundials at home with parents so they can track the progress of the sun over a longer time such as when they are at home at the weekend and I’m sure they will enjoy sharing their results on the Class Dojo.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Niamh

Integrating art, poetry and music into all of your STEM lessons is a lovely idea and it sounds like you have discovered a wide range of art, poetry and music while doing this. Encouraging your pupils to do the same might be a nice exercise too to see what they come up with. I remember my son doing a poetry assignment during school closures where he had to choose a poem to write about. For reference, he was given a website link with a wide range of poetry all listed by subject area. I took a look at the section on “Nature Poetry” for my own interest and was disappointed to find poems about farm animals and pets but not a single one about nature so I was delighted to look up and read your suggested poem Nature Trail by Benjamin Zephaniah. It is a great poem to go along with bug hunting and discovering Biodiversity and the reference to the owl in the garden at night is a lovely link with Dark Skies

[Una Halpin]

Hi Cathy

You are so right about the importance of teaching children about Biodiversity. As you said, children in Dublin and other large urban areas may not have regular contact with wild spaces. Often gardens and parks are so manicured that there is very little wildlife to be seen. If we are not used to seeing wild plants and animals, we won’t notice them disappearing until it starts to impact our lives in other ways. Your plan makes great use of the resources in this module and I love the emphasis on peer learning with children researching their favourite plant or animal and teaching others about it. Incorporating the needs of birds into your sensory garden is a lovely idea and I’m sure the sound of birdsong  will add greatly to your garden.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Aoife

I’m happy that you got so much enjoyment out of this module and lots of ideas to bring back to your classroom. It is a lovely idea to do a 4 week block of lessons on space with lots of practical activities to introduce the features of the night sky before introducing the two websites and allowing children to explore them. I like your focus on energy use and looking at light levels across the world.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Mairead

I like your focus on materials and comparing the materials used to make a rocket and the comparison with the materials used for other forms of transport also the focus on the materials in the box that they can use to make their rocket. Perhaps if you are going to leave it up to the groups to design their own rocket you might like to do some preparatory work on forces and discuss the different forces that might make a rocket move. Maybe exploring some different types of rockets such as the paper rockets and balloon rockets would be a good exploring phase.

[Una Halpin]

Hi David

I like your approach here. Talking about the themes raised in the Paxi video is important. Although it is a short video, it covers quite a lot, so a discussion on the main points is a good idea. I love the idea of using the “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs” film as inspiration for their own thoughts on the Earth’s climate

[Una Halpin]

Hi David

That is a great question. It ticks all the boxes for a Climate Detectives project in that it is a local climate problem, can be investigated and is not too broad or too narrow. It also has the added bonus of having a good practical and hands on component. Your idea of making the weather instruments and learning about weather is a good one and the Weather and Climate resource from Module 1 could be a good one here to help the children understand the difference between weather and climate and how climate change can affect our local weather. You are probably not going to go too much into the data gathering with 1st class but you could also look up past weather data from Ireland to add to your project.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Louise

This is a lovely question that has a nice local link. You will want to pick a bird species whose numbers have been well documented over a number of years so part of your initial research could involve finding out what birds migrate to Ireland and seeing what data is available on them. If there is a particular migratory bird species that come to your local area that might be a good species to pick as getting someone local to talk about the birds and maybe planning a trip to see them would be easier. Taking action by creating bird boxes or improving the local habitat to provide food for birds would be a great plan. Don’t forget to also study historic climate data to correlate with your data on bid numbers.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Lorna

I agree with your approach in using video clips from Home and investigations such as “Earth Under the Lid” and “The Ice is Melting” to ensure that your pupils understand what Climate Change is before investigating their local problem. I think your research question is too broad. You have lots of examples of different aspects of the local environment to be investigated but I think you will find that by splitting the class into different groups to investigate different aspects you will have too many fieldtrip to organise and too many projects to supervise. I would suggest narrowing your question to one thing such as rainfall or coastal erosion. The project can them be completed as a whole class with different groups responsible for aspects such as accessing satellite data, taking local measurements, graphing results etc.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Anne

Your question is a good one. The World Health Organisation has said that climate change is having an impact on human health but it is hard to quantify. Most of your examples relate to developing countries where the effects of climate change on human health is easier to quantify but the brief for a Climate Detectives project is to investigate a local climate problem so you would need to look at health effects closer to home. For example, a group from Castleisland Community School looked at the incidences of Asthma in their local community and correlated this with air pollution  from the burning of fossil fuels.

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