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Hi Carrie
Using the Gardening for Biodiversity book as inspiration for encouraging Biodiversity in your school is a lovely idea. I don’t know if you are aware yet, but Laois Education Centre now have a new Biodiversity garden created with a range of different areas to provide inspiration for schools of different sizes, with signage to explain each area. I haven’t seen it myself yet but the photos look amazing. It should be a great source of inspiration to you and other schools in the Laois area and hopefully something that other Education Centres around the country will implement too.
Hi Fiona
That sounds like a well thought out plan for studying the moon. I love the idea of the initial questions and bringing the children up to draw what the moon looked like when they saw it. This is a great way to start a discussion on the phases of the moon why, it looks different on different days and at different times of year and why it is seen in different parts of the sky. Encouraging the children to draw the moon when they go out to observe it might be a good idea as well as trying to use the iPads as photographing the moon can be difficult.
Hi Pat
Coastal erosion is one of the most easily visible effects of climate change and investigating it on your local beach is a fantastic idea for a Climate Detectives project. A visit to the beach combined with research on the causes, effects and solutions to coastal erosion and examining data from satellite imagery is a great way to go about the project. The Geohive map viewer from the Ordnance Survey https://www.geohive.ie/ might be a useful tool for you.
Hi Gina
That is a great question and is something that the children can directly observe in their school garden. It would help if you had some photos from previous years of plants that were harvested from the school garden but if not it would be a great idea to start a small database in school. You could record what was planted each year, along with the dates and the weather and some photographs and the same with harvesting whatever was planted. You could even keep a simple daily log of the weather, especially if you got other classes involved or could simply refer to past weather data. That way you would be able to track the changes from year to year and identify which were good growing years and which were bad.
Hi Maurice
I like the idea of recommending Home to climate sceptics. I’m hoping that you don’t have too many climate sceptic co-workers in your school as it is important for those involved in educating our children to be informed about the harsh realities of climate change and to be informed about the science so that they can help to guide children in positive behaviour. There is so much misinformation out there that the more you can do to help counter this among colleagues and parents, the more the children will benefit. I agree with your reasoning on not showing Home to the children, unless as some others have commented you select specific short clips, and that a more hopeful and solutions focused approach can be more motivating for children.
Hi Jacqui
Your sensory garden sound like a lovely place to set up a weather station and do some weather monitoring. As you have 6th class, you might be interested in another ESERO resource https://esero.ie/wp-content/themes/esero_theme/pdf/66_Class%20weather%20station.pdf which gives instructions for making a simple thermometer, a hygromter for measuring humidity and a different type of barometer. Another resource 46_Strong-air.pdf (esero.ie) gives instructions for making a simple barometer. While not all of these instruments will give accurate readings, making them will help students to understand how the different weather instruments work and why we need to record so many different variables when forecasting the weather.
Hi Jacqui
Your sensory garden sound like a lovely place to set up a weather station and do some weather monitoring. As you have 6th class, you might be interested in another ESERO resource https://esero.ie/wp-content/themes/esero_theme/pdf/66_Class%20weather%20station.pdf which gives instructions for making a simple thermometer, a hygromter for measuring humidity and a different type of barometer. Another resource 46_Strong-air.pdf (esero.ie) gives instructions for making a simple barometer. While not all of these instruments will give accurate readings, making them will help students to understand how the different weather instruments work and why we need to record so many different variables when forecasting the weather.
Hi James
Thank you for sharing those examples of poetry, art and music and explaining so well how they can be used as inspiration in your classroom.
I love A Christmas Childhood and always think of that line ‘Cassiopeia was over Cassidy’s hanging hill’ whenever I try to find constellations in the night sky.
I like your description of the Van Gogh painting and its usefulness in highlighting the difference between the useful artificial light of earlier eras with the excessive light pollution of recent times.
I am also a big fan of the Chris Hadfield version of Space Oddity.
Hi Andrew
I love the idea of organising a local Night Sky Festival for the students to share their artwork and writing is a great idea particularly if you can get local astronomers involved to allow the children and others to view then night sky with telescopes. This has the potential to be a great community event and having it at night when people will be looking at the night sky while discussing light pollution should increase the likelihood of people listening to the children’s messages and taking action
Hi Orla
That sounds like a great project. I love the idea of community involvement, moving from awareness of the issues to coming up with solutions and then the active engagement with local authorities and the local community to try to have some of their solutions implemented. Having a wide range of ways for your pupils to document their work on the project is sure to keep the interest going in your class especially if they can persuade local authorities to engage with them on dark sky friendly lighting or encourage their families and others to turn off unnecessary lights at night.
Hi Emer
Welcome to the course. I’m glad you like the stellarium resource and I like your approach to using it with your class. Having task cards for individual exploration on the tablets is a lovely idea as it provides prompts to guide their learning while at the same time leaving them free to explore. Continuing the exploration at home where they will hopefully be able to see the stars is a lovely follow-up activity.
Hi Maurice
It’s great that Dr Liston’s paper has given you a better understanding of STEM and even better that you have been using a STEM approach already without realising it. you make a very good point about countering the misinformation around Climate Change. So many people think a colder and wetter summer is evidence that the Earth isn’t warming because they fail to grasp the difference between weather and climate and understand how a warming Earth can make all sorts of abnormal weather events more frequent. I hope that you get to try out some weather instruments with your class and make full us of Science, maths, engineering, technology and integrated learning opportunities that weather recording provides.
Hi Aine
I’m glad you liked the resources in this and you have some great ideas for using them to enhance discussion and critical thinking through analysis of the prediction models and coupling the use of the prediction tool with research on climate policies and climate mitigation strategies employed around the world seems like a very thorough way of deepening children’s engagement with the topic of climate change and encouraging them to think about solutions.
Hi Anthony
Using the recent Aurora Borealis sightings is a great way to start a conversation about dark skies with the children. You could ask if anyone managed to see it. Even though I live in a rural area and can see the stars relatively well from my garden, I have some neighbours with very bright outdoor lighting and a few bright streetlights so I was very disappointed not to be able to see the Aurora myself. Sharing your own experience of now being able to experience darkness at night when you couldn’t previously would be a good way to spark conversations about places the children may have been with higher or lower levels of light pollution
Hi Claire
Your sea safari sound like a lovely experience for the children. Marine Biodiversity is not something I have a lot of experience in myself but I am always fascinated when I can look into rock pools and see a variety of life inside. I had an opportunity lately to explore some fantastic rockpools in Tramore where we saw a variety of sea anemones opening and closing as well as a tiny crab. Completing projects in class is a lovely idea so the children know what to look for, as is having a knowledgeable person to help the children choose the right locations to search.
