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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 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 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.
