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Hi Christopher
Taking photos of the street outside the school is a good idea. You could first get the children to assess the street during daylight and see what they think of the amount and direction of the lights and then show them the photographs you took. Getting them to assess the lighting in their own area and take photos is a great idea as is using what you find to come up with solutions and take action.
Hi Robert
Stellarium is a great resource and I’m sure that the children in your class will really enjoy working in groups to explore the night sky using Stellarium. Starting off with a discussion of what the children see in the night sky is a nice starting point. I’m sure that they will talk about the moon and stars, but I wonder how many will mention planets. A great way to extend this would be to get them to look for constellations that would be visible to them and then go home and look for them at night.
Hi Laura
I think that story of your trip to Fraser Island would be a lovely one to share with the children in your class when talking about light pollution. You could ask them if any of them have had any experience of looking at the stars when visiting another part of Ireland or another country. Those stories could be used as a way to illustrate the difference between light pollution levels in Dublin City and other areas. Creating a questionnaire for homework is a great idea as it would be suited to your own area and as all the children would be answering the same questions it would be a great way to compare light pollution levels in the different areas where the children live.
Hi Mairead
I’m not sure if you plan to bring the children on a walk during the day to identify light sources or to set them the task for homework of walking or driving with their families at night. Both would work well. You could walk as a class to identify where lights are and photograph them or even add them to a street map and then some of the children could revisit the areas at night to assess the amount of light pollution caused by the lights.
Hi Mairead
That sounds like a lovely plan. A discussion on the differences between urban and rural areas is a good idea. I don’t know whether your school is urban or rural but if you have pupils living in both rural and urban areas, getting them to look for the same constellations in the night sky might be a way of contrasting what they can see or simply discussing the issue with their parents or family members living in a contrasting area would do the same. Doing some audits of lighting in their own local area and then designing a town plan to minimise light pollution is a nice practical idea
Hi Eva
Yes most people probably aren’t aware of light pollution. Lights are so prevalent now that we are just used to them and don’t think about the problems that excess lighting causes. Using pictures taken from a dark sky reserve is a good idea to illustrate the difference between an urban setting with a lot of lights and a place where there is minimal lighting and the stars are really visible. Getting the children to do a light pollution audit should be easy enough for children in an urban setting to do with their families. They could also talk to their parents about their experiences of the night sky growing up.
Hi Keith
Yes true STEM learning is about allowing children to take an active part in their own learning and allowing them to learn by trying things out, experimenting, designing and finding solutions. By allowing them to research information, explore materials and engaging in active learning and discussion, they will gain more skills and knowledge than if they were just passively absorbing information. As you have said, the activities in this module are great examples of this learning approach where children get to bring their own ideas and discuss what they already know before engaging in a process that allows them to increase their understanding. Discussing the placement of each weather instrument with the children is a great example of this. Rather than the teacher saying we will place the rain gauge in this location and giving reasons for it, the children can discuss as a class how the rain gauge will work and what it needs to do before deciding on a location to place it. If they choose an unsuitable location, they will learn by trial and error why it was unsuitable.
Hi Orla
I love the idea of using a recent newspaper article and a current topic to introduce the lesson on greenhouse gases. There is great progression there from introducing the question at the start and debating it, to then learning more about greenhouse gases and climate change and coming back to the original question. It would be very interesting to see if opinions change after learning more about the topic. brining in some data about Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions and airline emissions in general would be a good way to add to this discussion. Websites such as https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions can help with global figures while https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/ has information on Ireland’s emissions. It is also a great way of showing the children that Climate Change is not just an abstract concept but has an impact on our lives in many ways and needs to be considered in everything we do.
Hi Martina
I love your approach of including a focus on recent innovations and inventions that help to tackle climate change. It is always good to put a positive slant on discussions around climate change and get the children thinking about solutions that can help to reduce the effects or mitigate against them. Using real life examples of people who have come up with solutions is a great way to do this and as our understanding of the problem grows, there are new ideas and solutions being developed all the time. Highlighting these innovations and using stories and examples of people, especially young people who have made a positive difference is a great idea to instil a sense of hope in children. I came across this book recently which might be of interest https://www.rebelgirls.com/products/rebel-girls-climate-warriors
Hi Emily
I like your idea of dividing the class into groups to use the TEAL tool. Maybe you could first demonstrate with Ireland. COme up with some simple questions about temperature, rainfall etc in Ireland e.g. comparing the same month over a number of years and see what you can find out as a class. When you split the children into groups, they could first come up with a list of questions they want to answer about the country they are researching before using the TEAL tool to answer the questions. As they research they may come across other information that they want to highlight. Alternatively, the class could come up with a list of questions that every team will research so they can then compare results. I like the idea of teams having a choice in how they present their findings.
Hi Ciara
I agree that a mixture of different types of activities and a cross curricular approach is important when dealing with Climate Change. It is not something that should be done as a one off video or discussion but after using video clips, discussions, debates, stories and hands on activities such as recording the weather or modelling the greenhouse effect, the solutions should then be incorporated into daily school life and highlighted. When growing vegetables in the school garden, you can talk about how you are saving energy by reducing food miles and food packaging. You might get the class involved in planting trees or reducing mowing and talk about how trees and plants absorb Carbon Dioxide. When doing art or engineering projects you can re-use waste materials instead of buying specific craft materials and discuss waste reduction. You can have creative writing projects based around imagining a better future.
Hi Brona
I love your idea of the project on a more sustainable town. It is lovely to think about Climate Change from a solutions point of view and to involve the children in projects that imagine how we could live more in harmony with our planet. It is great too, that you created the physical model as well as the minecraft version as both have their merits and working on both would allow the children to invest more in the thought process around what features they were adding to their town. If you were to use the film “Home” as part of the project, I would suggest not using the whole film, but picking those parts that focus on solutions and showing those clips to the children as inspiration during the planning phase of their sustainable town project.
Hi Shonagh
As you have said, it is important to tie Climate Change in with our own actions and see how we can have an impact, but it is also important not to make children feel that they are to blame for a problem that was created by adults: both ourselves and previous generations. I’m not sure which of the videos from this module you are referring to when you talk about making notes and analysing the main points, but I wouldn’t suggest doing this with “Home” as it it too long and probably too much for most primary school children. You could, as some teachers have suggested use shorter clips from the film to aid discussion in the classroom. Your idea of setting a challenge to the children to save water or save energy at home is a good idea but it would have to be introduced the right way and would be best done after doing a similar challenge in school with the teacher leading by example in actions like only turning on the whiteboard when it is being used and opening up classroom blinds to make use of natural daylight instead of artificial light when possible in the classroom.
Hi Rachel
That sounds like a lovely project to be carried out over a full school year. It would get the children really involved in collecting weather data but also make them more aware of water and how important it is for wildlife, for growing crops and for our daily lives. There would be a great tie in there with a green schools water flag as being more aware of water would lead to discussions on how import it is to conserve water and not waste it. To make the project suitable for Climate Detectives, you would need to tie it in to Climate Change by looking at long term rainfall data using resources such as the TEAL tool to see how rainfall amounts have changed and by discussing flooding events or droughts in your local area or in Ireland as a whole over recent years.
Hi Olivia
I’m glad you liked the ESA Resource and can see how to use is with many different class groups. Looking at the school from a bird’s eye view is a nice place to start and Google maps can be very useful here as you can use the satellite view to zoom in on the school from the sky and then switch to street view to look at the school from the ground. Using this idea for history or language is good. Tools like Geohive from the Ordnance survey https://www.geohive.ie/ will give you access to satellite images from earlier times so you can look at continuity and change and see how a satellite view of your local area looks different in many ways a from a similar view 30 years ago.
