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Hi Laura
Yes the light pollution map is a real eye opener. It is shocking to see the increase in light pollution over such a short number of years. Your assumption that your local area is not much affected by light pollution is a good example of shifting baseline syndrome, where people accept that the condition of the environment around them is normal. We most likely experienced darker skies in the past, but probably not to the extent that people of previous generations did and because the increase in light pollution has been gradual, we often don’t see it as a problem or realise how much better it would be for ourselves and for nature if the skies were darker. Using the blue light from a phone is a good prompt for a lesson on light pollution as children will probably have heard about the negative effects on people and it is a good way to begin a discussion on other forms of light pollution.
Hi Breeda
I’m glad that you and your children are getting such enjoyment out of the Satellite Tracker ap. I’m sure your children would love to go outside at the right time on a clear night and see if they can spot the ISS or other satellites passing overhead and that might lead on to them taking some more interest in the astronauts on board the ISS and watching some of the videos of life on board. Exploring the ap with your own children over the summer should give you some great inspiration for introducing it to your class in September.
Hi Aoife
It is a lovely idea to introduce your senior infants to the idea of a Carbon Footprint and what it means for their daily lives. Younger children will enjoy taking little steps to cut out energy waste and keeping track of what they achieve. If they can influence other classes to take part that would be fantastic and it would give them a real sense of achievement to be leading the school on something like this. For an older class who wanted to actually complete a Climate Detectives project, a question on Carbon Footprint would be way too broad and they would need to use the research question planner to come up with a specific question starting with a broad topic like transport, electricity or heating and then refine it down to something specific they could measure and gather data on.
Hi Shane
I like the idea of children researching stories and traditions from different cultures and regions. There could be a lot of variation represented by parents and family members who came from different parts of Ireland and even more variation in customs and stories from other countries around the world. This is a great way to make connections beyond the school and to involve parents, grandparent and other family members as well as other members of the local community in a school project. I love how you are offering children the choice of how to display and present their work to others while providing a template for those who would prefer to have that option
Hi David
I like the variety of approaches here, starting with the introduction to Biodiversity and discussing the children’s prior knowledge, moving on to a walk to investigate biodiversity in the locality and then moving on to individual species and the impact of light pollution in them. Having each child or pair pick an animal of their choosing to research would give a wealth of information on how light pollution is affecting different species. Even if information on the effect of light pollution on some of the species chosen is hard to come by, children could still find out what they can about the animal’s habitat, food and lifestyle and using what they know about light pollution draw their own conclusions about how it might affect their chosen animal. This would be a great exercise in critical thinking as they would have to combine different types of information to come to their conclusions.
Hi Siobhan
I’m happy that STEM is one acronym that you can get behind and I fully agree with you on the STEM kits. I hope you will find from using the resources in this course and others on the Curious Minds and ESERO websites that a wide range of active and engaging STEM lessons can be carried out very well with very little expense, simply by using materials already in your classroom, supplemented with the contents of your recycling bin and some inexpensive stationery items. Of course some specialist equipment for some of the energy and forces strand units such as electricity, light and magnetism are very useful. It is fantastic that you already monitor the weather with your class and I hope you have found some new ideas from this module to add to your weather station.
Hi Ciara
It’s lovely to hear that you are becoming more familiar with the concept of STEM and are getting more confident at encouraging active STEM exploration in your classroom. It is great that you have a weather station and encouraging children to make their own weather instruments is a great way to supplement what is in your weather station or even to compare their own instruments with the others to understand how they work. As Lorna said, I think you will find the Curious Minds and ESERO resources to be very useful for your work in SET as practical hands on STEM lessons are a great way to work on numeracy and literacy skills especially to see the practical application of maths.
Hi Louise
That’s a nice short video clip that could be used as a prompt for lots of lessons and I like how you have introduced it as a prompt for discussion around how we tell the time and the project of designing and making a sundial. Researching sundials for themselves is a great way for the children to take ownership of their projects and could result in a good variety of materials and designs in the class sundials, depending on where children got their inspiration. Using the sundials at different times of the year is a nice way to talk about the seasons and show how the hours of daylight vary throughout the year which could itself be a prompt for lessons on day, night and the seasons.
Hi Katie
Welcome to the course. I’m glad that Maeve Liston’s paper has given you some clarity on what STEM actually means and how full integration of the elements of STEM and the skills such as critical thinking, creativity and collaboration can be of real benefit to pupils and teachers. Throughout the modules of this course and using the Curious Minds and ESERO resources we are giving examples of how to put these ideas into practice in the classroom. You have already outlined how designing and making a sundial can be a fully rounded STEM activity and I hope you find many more examples throughout the course that will provide inspiration for your own STEM classroom.
Hi Shane
I love your integration of Stellarium with the hands on elements. In each of the examples you have used of finding a planet on Stellarium, you have identified a characteristic of that planet, discussed how it might be best viewed in the night sky and also pointed out what to look for. Using Google images to show the planets is another nice idea. Guiding your pupils through the first few examples on the iPads will give them a good foundation for using the tool and then using it independently will give them extra confidence in exploring the night sky. Some of the children might choose to download it on devices at home and use it to explore the night sky with their families.
Hi Odhran
You have outlined a great plan there for a Dark Sky Place project. As you have identified, planning is very important, both for the teacher and for the pupils. For the teacher, as you said, planning will involve deciding how much time will be dedicated to the project and identifying all of the curriculum links so that it can be integrated into a number of lessons. For the pupils, planning will involve research into dark skies and light pollution, discussion of materials to be used, drawing of plans if they are to make a model and decisions on how they will present their work to others.
Hi Daniel
You have mentioned both external visits to the school by local environmental specialists and also engagement with the local community. Both of these are very important when considering how to improve Biodiversity in your school and also when considering the needs of nocturnal species. Collaboration with environmental specialists can help you to improve biodiversity in the school grounds in a number of ways: they can help children and teachers to discover what biodiversity is already in your school; help with research on native plant and animal species and provide advice on choosing the biodiversity actions that are best suited to your space. Cooperation with the local community can give children an opportunity to share their knowledge with others to provide wider benefit for wildlife beyond the school. Night time events such as bat walks or stargazing events could then be community events that the children in the school can benefit from.
Hi Jamie
Looking at the concept of Carbon footprint can be a good way to start thinking of a project for Climate Detectives but as this is an extremely broad topic that would encompass all electricity use, heating, transport, purchasing and waste among other things, you would need to narrow it down considerably to make it a suitable research question. If you try to look into too many different aspects of energy use, you will find it difficult to gather data and measure the impact of any actions. You might want to chose either electricity or heating as your overall topic and then come up with a question that covers one aspect of that. e.g “how does our school’s computer usage contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and how could we lower our impact?”
Hi Christina
Looking at the effects of Climate Change on tourism in Ireland is an interesting idea for a project. It is quite a broad question but could be narrowed down once you see what sort of data is available. Once you have looked into the reasons that people come to Ireland, you might also want to look at the main places that tourists visit and of course you will need to look at climate predictions for Ireland and other data such as predicted flood maps. You would then need to look at whether some of the main tourist destinations are likely to be affected by Climate Change and use that to formulate your research question e.g. Will Coastal Erosion impact on tourist numbers travelling the Wild Atlantic Way
Hi Orla
It is great that you used the resources from Teaching Space in Junior Classes to make a sundial with your 2nd and 3rd year class and that you have reflected on that exercise to plan a more detailed version of the lesson for 5th and 6th class. this is a great example of inquiry in action, recognising that an older class will be capable of more in depth exploration of the purpose of sundials and how to locate and build them. there is plenty of opportunity for integration with other subject areas particularly geography, history and maths from learning about longitude and finding the longitude of your school, to researching how people told the time in the past and the measuring and calculating of angles for the gnomon.
