Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Brendan
That sounds like a lovely project and a wonderful way to illustrate the changes in your local biodiversity. I’m sure there was a big difference in the 2 canvases as in common with most places, I’m sure that parents and grandparents in your area have noticed a decline in wildlife since they were young. Extending your project out to consider the effects of light pollution would be a great idea especially as you are close enough to be able to visit Wild Nephin.
Hi Aisling
As you said, nature walks are great for stimulating discussions around Biodiversity. As your school are beginning your Biodiversity flag this year, perhaps you could go beyond simply a nature walk and use some of the resources in this module to encourage children to do some more in depth exploration and identification of plants and animals. I like the idea of getting the children to work in groups to research a particular species on the iPads and share their findings with others through posters. Instructing the children to choose a native Irish animal or plant will make it more relevant to them. You might be interested in a lovely resources from the Irish Schools Sustainability Network called Bitesize Biodiversity https://www.issn.ie/bitesize-biodiversity
Hi Catherine
That sounds like a lovely lesson on constellations, with children creating constellations. I like the idea of the children comparing their constellations to a display of actual constellations visible over Cork and also that the children are given time to present their constellations to the class, A nice addition might be a story or legend about a constellation as a prompt to begin the lesson. Children could link back to this when presenting their constellation to the class and some might come up with a story about their constellation and where it got its name
Hi Alison
That’s a good question and it sounds like you did a great investigation on it with your class this year. Connecting Climate Change to the children’s own lived experiences and seeing how it affects their local area is very important. This is why the main purpose of the Climate Detectives project is for teams to investigate a local climate problem to demonstrate that Climate Change isn’t just something far away that affects other people. Your question about local weather makes it relevant to the children and by making it relevant to them, they can then start to think about positive actions they can take.
Hi Breeda
You have highlighted the issue that a lot of students and teachers have with Climate Detectives, that of choosing a research question. You have really embraced the process of starting with an idea and narrowing it down to find a question that you can gather data for. Using a sample project is a good idea to explain the process of choosing a question and there are Mini Case Studies in the resources section on the website that show sample questions and demonstrate how they can be investigated. Once you have the right question it points the way to yoru investigation by showing what data you need to gather. Your own question is a good one that meets the criteria of being a local climate issue that is not too broad but yet provides scope for investigation. Counting the cars passing the school is a good way to gather data and this can be combined with emissions data on vehicles. The Data and Insights section on the SEAI website https://www.seai.ie/ has data on average vehicle emissions in Ireland or if you record makes and models of cars you could look up specific emissions data for vehicle types. Good research for yourself too.
Hi Catherine
I was a big fan of the Julia Donaldson books when my son was younger but I’m not familiar with What the Ladybird Heard. Using a story with a map in it is a great way to introduce the concept of maps and by recreating the map on the whiteboard with the children’s help, you are demonstrating how maps can be used to plan or trace a route from place to place and encouraging them to remember the story through the visual representation. Creating their own farm maps outdoors is a lovely follow up idea where they have to think about the different features of their farm and how they will place them in relation to each other. Orienteering activities are another lovely way to build on mapwork.
Hi Orla
I love the idea of getting the children to observe the position of the sun at sunrise and sunset at home for a week before observing it in school at specific times. This gives the children a chance to discuss what they have observed themselves before investigating further in class. You might want to do a little research on sunrise and sunset times before the assignment as determining the exact time of sunrise and sunset from observation is very difficult. By looking up sunrise and sunset times for the week in their area, the children will know when they need to go outside to observe. The Paxi video https://www.esa.int/kids/en/Multimedia/Paxi_animations/English/Day_night_and_the_seasons would be a nice addition to this activity as would the ESERO resource https://esero.ie/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/PR45_One_year_on_Earth.pdf
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 David
That sounds like a great use of online data sets with lots of maths integration. There are so many examples of real world data sets that can be used and you have highlighted so well how that data on libraries and population densities can be used to great effect, in locating libraries on a map, comparing the numbers of libraries to population. You could also calculate the distances to libraries from some rural locations to see how far some people would have to travel to visit a library. I love the extension activities too as library facilities have changed so much in recent years and pupils may not be aware of the range of facilities they can avail of through their library.
Hi Felicity
Those sound like some lovely ways for the children to explore light in stations and it was great that you did the activities over 2 days so the children weren’t too rushed by having all of the activities in one day. Also it may have given them time to reflect on what they had learned in between the 2 days and perhaps experiment with mirrors at home if they were interested. Hopefully this module has given you some extra ideas for open ended exploration, investigation and design and make that you could use if you repeat the lesson with future classes.
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 Conor
That sounds like a great lesson plan for exploring the night skies. I love how you have differentiated the exploring stage where children get to choose their own area of interest and use a variety of forms of art, music and their own experience as inspiration to plan their class study of the night sky. Making their star guides in school and then studying the night sky at home is a great activity to get them interested and engaged with astronomy. I like the way you have scheduled a follow up session on a later day to see what they learned from their explorations.
