Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Maria
That sounds like a lovely lesson, where you introduce the topics and the websites and tools to find information and then give the children the freedom to work in groups on their projects. allowing them the space to research climate change and find information for themselves and come up with solutions will give them ownership of their project and make them more likely to retain the information than if you had simply presented it to them.
Hi Amy
Thank you for sharing your insights into all three activities here: use of the satellite tracker app and the EO Browser as well as the practical activities from “Nose High Up in the Sky”. I’m glad that you appreciated both of the online tools and can see their value for use in the classroom. I like how you linked satellite coordinates with maths. The weather proverbs and weather descriptions provide a great cross curricular approach to looking at the weather and I agree that making a weather station is a great way to get children involved in recording the weather. Perhaps they can then compare the results from their own instruments with those from standard weather equipment and from published weather data.
Hi Odhrán
From your answer, I assume that you are talking about the EO browser although you haven’t specified. I’m glad that you appreciate the tool and find it user friendly. Once you are confident in using the EO browser it can be a great tool to use in your classroom as you will be able to guide the children at the start and then allow them to pose questions and explore the answers for themselves and most children will get to grips with this type of technology relatively easily. Good luck with your explorations.
Hi Adam
A project based on transport to school is a great idea. It is focussed on a local climate problem and makes use of readily available data on the average emissions from cars and other forms of transport. You also have a clear plan for how to carry out your project. I would however rephrase your question slightly. For a Climate Detectives project you should remove vague terms like “help the environment” and don’t use very broad terms like “Carbon footprint” as it would be extremely difficult to calculate your school’s carbon footprint. A question that fits your project better would be “How can we reduce the Carbon emissions resulting from our travel to school?” You can find average emissions data for cars in the Data and Insights section on https://www.seai.ie/. You will also find some basic transport statistics on https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/004a9-your-journey-counts/. You would then need to conduct surveys on the ways children travel to school and the average length of their journey.
Hi Fiona
That is a really good question that is based on a local climate problem, is not too broad and makes use of readily available data. Because your question is well defined, you have a clear idea of what data you need to gather to answer your question. The website https://waterlevel.ie/ can give you recent water levels on any local rivers that have a monitor installed and for older water level data going back as far as 1972 you can use https://waterlevel.ie/hydro-data/#/overview/Waterlevel
Hi Padraig
This is a very good question based on a local climate issue that is directly related to the children’s own experience. It would be a good to ask the children about their own experience of the weather over the summer holidays compared to previous years before checking up the actual rainfall and temperature data to see if their perception actually matches the reality. Another nice addition to this activity would be making the weather station from module 1 and encouraging the children to gather their own weather data to compare to the published data. I’m glad that you enjoyed the resources in this course and feel that they can add to the work you have done in previous years when teaching children about climate change.
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.
