[Una Halpin]

Hi Niamh

Welcome to the course. I like your plan for using the Day and Night in the World resource with 5th class. The idea of the exit ticket to assess learning is great as it allows pupils to think about what they have taken from the lesson, check their own understanding and then explain it on their own words. It amy also be an opportunity for pairing or grouping children for a follow up activity, allowing an opportunity for those who didn’t quite grasp the concepts to learn from their peers.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Shane

I really like your plan for observing the sun’s position and especially your ideas for differentation. I love the use of the compass rose for predicting the sun’s position at each of the 3 times. I also like that you have added in the measurement of the length of the shadow and the discussion on how this might vary during the year. By recording the information and marking the position of the gnomon in some way, they could potentially repeat the investigation at other times of year, recording predictions during their first investigation and then checking them at a later date.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Michael

Welcome to the course. I love the idea of using local landmarks such as Ben Bulben to study sunrise and sunset and the movements of the sun across the sky. I love the idea of going to the beach to study their shadows. It could be part of a whole STEM fieldtrip if you wanted to be there long enough to observe the shadows over a period of time throughout the day. The beach is also a nice place to make observations about the curve of the Earth as you look at the horizon out to sea.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Anne

That is a good plan for using WorldWide Telescope with 3rd to 4th class. You have clear learning intentions and a step by step approach for children to follow to discover some of the planets and find out facts about them. To continue the learning and allow for differentiation within the class, it might be a good idea to encourage some free exploration for those who have completed the initial tasks. They could ask their own questions about planets or stars and then navigate the resource to find the answers for themselves. This would be a great opportunity for sharing knowledge with the class as different pairs would have investigated different planets or constellations.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Kelly

Welcome to the course and I’m glad you liked the activities in module 1. As you have said, children (and adults) usually learn much more easily if they can find out information for themselves instead of being simply told the facts and the weather v climate activity is a great way to encourage them to think for themselves and figure out the difference. Combining the weather v climate activity with the weather detectives one allows them to explore these ideas further and make connections between their own work and the work that meterologists too. They can also see that while they are measuring weather, on a short term basis, weather data recorded and analysed over 30 years or more can give us the climate data that we need.  The notebook is a good idea especially if it can be revisited througout the year in different seasons

[Una Halpin]

Hi Leah

It is great that you found the EO browser so easy to navigate  and that you can see it’s application in a senior classroom. It is as you said a great way to integrate digital tools and would be a great opportunity for integrated STEM lessons in line with the new STEM curriculum as well as cross curricular learning. Giving a demonstration of how to use the website first is a good idea and possible you might assign some simple tasks that pupils could work on to gain confidence before directing their own exploration.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Anne

 

Welcome to the course. I’m sure your class will enjoy the Earth tubes activity you have outlined.

Just a note on formatting. When typing your replies elsewhere and pasting in, right click on the box and click on past as plain text. This will get rid of the extra formatting and make your posts easier to read

[Una Halpin]

Hi Lyndsy

Surveying the school’s lighting is a good idea and I like that you are first focussing on whether lights are being left on unnecessarily. Classroom lights left on overnight could have a big impact on light pollution levels outside and this would be an easy place to start before looking at the outdoor ligths and seeing which ones could be switched off. Looking at light direction, colour and shielding could be a follow up.  Carrying the message home and looking at outdoor lighting in their own homes is a nice way to extend the project beyond the school with the added opportunity to look for nocturnal wildlife at home, which they couldn’t do in school.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Laura

It is great that you can see so many opportunities for gathering stories and traditions of the night sky and you have a great plan for gathering and recording some of these stories. I like the idea of making it a whole school project with you and your class leading the project and assigning different areas and different methods of collecting information to other classes. Class visits to some of the local sites could be arranged to gather any previously recorded stories or accounts and provide inspiration for further research. Expanding out beyond the written accounts used in the Dúchas collection into audio recordings and pictures is a great way to give the children ownership of the project.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Peter

I love that idea of getting the children to look at the night sky and make their own observations before using Stellarium in class. They might record their findings through drawing some of the stars and their positions. Depending on their own prior knowledge and that of their parents, some might be able to pick out the North Star and possibly constellations like The Plough but others might have no knowledge of what they are seeing. It should lead to interesting discussions and comparisons. Going back to look again after using Stellarium should be a really good experience then as they will know what to look for. At this stage, the discussion might focus on how much they could see, leading to comparisons between the view from different homes and an introduction to the idea of light pollution.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Cait

Welcome to the course and thanks for your observations on the activities from this module. I believe that making simple weather instruments and recording the weather should be a part of every primary school experience and not just at one stage but revisited at various stages throughout primary school from simple recording at infant level to the building of more complex weather instruments as they get older. As you said, it is a perfect integrated STEM activity with the scientific study of the weather, engineering of weather instruments, data collection and use in maths and integration of technologies such as digital thermometers, spreadsheets and online weather and climate data. There is a wealth of online data so children can compare their own findings to the Met Eireann forecasts and it is very relevant to their everyday lives.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Fionnghuala

Tying in the Pax video with your polytunnel is a great practical way to illustrate the Greenhouse effect. As you have said, many children and adults too will have heard the different terms before but few will actually know what they mean so by bringing them out to the tunnel and showing the difference in temperature, you can easily explain that Carbon Dioxide and other gases are called greenhouse gases because they act like the glass in a greenhouse. The clear glass or plastic allows light energy from the sun to enter the tunnel and turn to heat when it is absorbed by the soil. The glass / plastic then traps heat and holds it inside. In our atmosphere, the sun’s heat is trapped by greenhosue gases. Max/min thermometers can be bought quite cheaply in garden centres of hardware shops and are a very useful addition to any polytunnel and a great learning tool. The Earth Under the lid resource from ESERO is another good way of illustrating this or you can buy small pop up greenhouses sized for fitting over a single raised bed that can illustrate it too. Clear glass or plastic is necessary to illustrate the greenhouse effect. Your parachute wouldn’t be a great way of illustrating the greenhouse effect as the heat trapped inside the parachute is body heat raditaing from the people inside not the sun’s heat being trapped.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Aoife

Welcome to the course and I’m glad that this module has encouraged you to think differently about STEM. So often, teachers are overwhelmed by the idea of STEM, feeling that they don’t have enough knowledge to teach it effectively or that they need expensive and complicated resources, but as you’ve noticed from the resources here and from Maeve Liston’s paper, this is not the case. Often very simple investigations using everyday materials can lead to fantastic learning experiences for children  if they are given the time and space to explore their ideas and the teacher can also learn with their pupils. I have been working with the Curious Minds and ESERO resources for almost 20 years and using the inquiry based approach in my own workshops with schools and I can honestly say that I have learned far more about STEM from this than I ever did in school or in my Science degree. I hope you get lots more ideas for integrating STEM in your junior classroom from the other modules in this course.  Just a word on formatting, for future modules, when writing replies elsewhere and pasting them into the forum, rigfht click on the box and choose paste as plain text and it will copy without the extra formatting.

 

[Una Halpin]

Hi Christina

Welcome to the course and thanks for sharing your ideas for using the mapping resources from this module withe your special school pupils. The lakes in Naas would be a lovely location for a walk and I like the idea of combining the children’s own observations and photographs of the location with an overall view of the area such as an online map or aerial photograph. I like the idea of giving children a chance to choose from a range of materials to create with or suggest their own and offering a range of supports for pupils to help create their maps.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Laura

Collaborating with other schools around the country woudl be a lovely idea if you could link up with other teachers that you know working in different areas. The idea of uploading photos onto Padlet is lovely but it can be difficult to capture what you are seeing in a photo. Drawings might be a good alternative. Having some common observation sheets that the children could fill in at home on agreed dates might also be a good idea that could highlight the differences in what the children could observe in the night sky. I really like the idea of linking with the wartime balckouts and the Eire signs. It would be difficult for children to imagine what blackouts would look like, given how prevalent artificial lighting has become.

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