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Hi Michelle
Understanding the difference between weather and cliamate is very important for an understanding of climate change. It is not only a difficult concept fro children but for many adults, which is part of the reason there are so many misconceptions about climate change. Helping children to understand the differences through practiclal tasks and reference to familiar situations will really help them to understand other issues. Recording weather data is a really good practical task that can be adapted for all ages. I love your idea of adding defenitions to the weather journal so that the children can refer back to these to reinforce their learning and make meaningful links
Hi Síofra
Welcome to the course. It is great that Maeve Liston’s paper has got you thinking about meaningful intergatration of STEM disciplines. Working with real life data such as weather measurements is a great way to integrate data in maths and get children interested. While Engineering has been included in the present curriculum in the form of the Design and Make skills, it is not so explicit so I agree that the new curriculum will help bring both Technology and Engineering to the fore with specific learning outcomes that help with planning lessons and integrated STEM experiences.
Hi Síofra
Welcome to the course. It is great that Maeve Liston’s paper has got you thinking about meaningful intergatration of STEM disciplines. Working with real life data such as weather measurements is a great way to integrate data in maths and get children interested. While Engineering has been included in the present curriculum in the form of the Design and Make skills, it is not so explicit so I agree that the new curriculum will help bring both Technology and Engineering to the fore with specific learning outcomes that help with planning lessons and integrated STEM experiences.
Hi Sean
I like your ideas for using the resources in this module. If children really understand the concept of greenhouse gases, this will make all understanding around climate change easier. By allowing them time to dicuss the concepts in the Paxi video and maybe showing it a few time, or pausing throughout to discuss the vocabulary used, they can start to see the relevance to their own lives which should help inform their discussions on actions. I like the idea of creating bar charts to help understand the data in the TEAL tool and the sharing of ideas with the student council.
Hi John
I’m glad you liked the Paxi video on Greenhouse gases and the other Paxi videos too. As you have said, the TEAL tool isn’t suitable for all classes and it may be that you don’t use it with your class or else that you maybe use it as a demonstration to show the contrasts between Ireland and other countries. If you do decide to allow children to explore it, you might simplify it by giving them a simple set of instructions to follow to find out a few pieces of information.
Hi Colin
I think your ideas for keeping the a local focus are great. Too often, climate change is seen as something that happens far away. People think that it doesn’t affect us or that our actions don’t make a difference, so bringing the discussion to how climate change is already having an impact in our local community and how it could have a greater impact in the future makes it relvant to the children and involving them in practical tasks helps show how our actions have relevance
Hi Aoife
Wecome to the course. It is great that you find the content of module 2 so useful. Having a worksheet to work through when exploring the TEAL tool would be very useful in getting to know how to use it. You could have a range of tasks from performing a specific set of actions to working out themselves how to find a particular peice of information and soem open ended tasks where they choose a question for themselves and show the class what they have found out. This would allow everyone in the class to engage with the data at their own level. The tool is probably more suited to older classes but as you said buudying up might make it more accessible.
Hi Aisling
Welcome to the course and thanks for your thoughts on this module. I like your point about the TEAL tool being useful to help children realisewhy their actions matter as this is something that is very important. Chilcren are great at giving lists of actions we can take but unless they understand why these actions are important, they won’t become embedded. Group discussion on actions will be really helpful especially if they then solidify that by sharing their ideas creatively with others and hands on investigations and activities will help to keep their interest. I also like your ideas on extension activities as there will be some children in your class who are already well aware of the basics and will relish the challenge to progress their learning further.
Hi Sarah
I am glad you enjoyed the module and foudn the resources useful. It is always a good idea to use practical tasks like gardening, weather recording, saving energy and reducitng waste to motivate children to think about climate change and our actions. Your class dicusssions and the use of some video clips can help them to understand why our personla actions matter and you can return to those discussions in a casual way while engaged in practical tasks, reminding children how growing some of our own food cuts down on the energy used in transport, storage and packaging, reducing and recycling waste helps to save the energy used in mining or extracting raw materials, transport and manufacture.
Hi Lorraine
Welcome to the course. I like the idea of the Scavenger Hunt sheet as it allows children to explore the site independently but giving them some direction in their explorations so that they are exploring with a purpose. Rather than passively learning about the planets from a book, they can find out information for themselves and share what they have learned. Making their own constellation is a nice way to round off the lesson.
Hi Margaret
I love the idea of using the idea of a new playground as a way to look at maps. As you said Google maps is great for introducign the idea of maps as you can zoom in to find familair locations and switch to satellite view and stree view to show them the relationship between what they see on the ground and the 2-D view of a map. Using the map to look at where houses are located would help finding a space and also help determine how far people would have to walk to get there. Following up with a design challeneg to design the playground is also a lovely idea
Hi Olive
Investigating seasonal changes in nature is great for children’s obsevration and understanding of the natural world and I like how you have integrated the study of the trees in your school into this resource. Rather than taking pictures yourslef, I would encourage you to go outside with the children during each season starting in Autum and finishing in summer, making this a year long project, and allow them to observe all of the seasonal changes for themselves. They could take photographs and draw pictures of the trees in each season that they could then use to look back on as a reminder at the start of the next season.
Hi Lorna
It is great that learning about the night sky will connect with the children’s love of space. The storybots song is a great introduction to the sun and moon. Using Stellarium not just to look at what is visible in the night sky above Ireland but alos to relate it to the country of birth of the children in your school or their parents is a great way to look at how the view of the night sky changes according to the observer’s location and the time of year. It is also a great way to great way to connect learning in school with home as children can observe the night sky at home or when out at night with their families.
Hi Christine
Welcome to the course. I like your idea of discussing the night sky first and predicting what planets will be visible. Some may be surprised to know how many of the planets we can actually see with the naked eye. I also like the idea of creating their own observation plan as this involves reading and understanding the information on when certian planets are visible and the observation at home makes a great linkbetween home and school.
A note on posting. When typing your responses elsewhere and pasting into the forum, right click on the response window before pasting and choose past as plain text. This will get rid of the extra formatting that makes your post more difficult to read.
Hi Orla
What a fantastic opportunity for the school to have a trail from the school to the castle. It is great that you make full use of this trail and use it to study Biodiversity on a regular basis. Adding observations of lighting would really add another dimension to this and I love your ideas for getting the children involved in promoting the idea of dark skies and actions to reduce light pollution withing the school community. As it is a town trail, perhaps the school could share their work with the local community through displaying their posters in the local library or talking to people who manage the trail.
