[Una Halpin]

Hi Arlene

Welcome to the course.  It’s great to hear your very positive reaction to Module 1 and the resources and tools outlined within it and also your great enthusiasm for STEM practice. The Curious Minds / ESERO Framework for inquiry was designed to make structuring lessons and cross curricular themes easier for teachers so it is great that you can see its value for helping to structure your own STEM work.  Hopefully you will find lots more inspiration in the other modules of the course for STEM teaching across a variety of themes and integration with subjects across the curriculum.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Marie

It’s fantastic that your own boys are planning a BioBlitz in the garden. Children love exploring nature especially finding minibeasts and I’m sure they would get great fun out of making a hide to observe birds. Through helping your own boys with their BioBlitz, you will get a lot of insight into what will and won’t work well with your class and what equipment and recording sheets you might need, which is great preparation for doing a school BioBlitz. During Biodiversity week in May every year, the Irish Environmental Network run a Backyard BioBlitz event over a full weekend where families are encouraged to BioBlitz their gardens and upload pictures of their finds on social media where there are experts on had to help identify them.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Nicola

I really love the idea of working with 3 other schools in different parts of the country on your weather stations. The zoom calls between schools are a great idea especially when it comes to designing and making their weather instruments and coming up with a common system for collecting and displaying data as well as monthly meet ups to discuss their results. Adding in factors such as weather related school closures really makes it relevant to their lives.  To add to it and connect to the wider climate issue, you could compare your collected weather data to some of the long term recorded climate data.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Roisin

I love this project idea. One of the main climate impacts we are seeing in Ireland is the increase in frequency of these extreme weather events so using this as the basis for your project is a good idea. I like the idea of using the children’s own experiences and then broadening out to look at newspaper articles. Tools like the EO Browser even the Teal Tool could be used here along with long term weather data. I really like the idea of getting the children involved with designing the Climate Safety kits. As power cuts become more frequent, due to extreme weather events, I am always amazed by the amount of people who are not prepared and do not have the basics in their houses like charged torches, gas camping stoves and a few days worth of food.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Sarah

I like the idea of using some of the more positive footage of Home to explore the origan of the Earth and the history of development for Geography and History lessons. Using this footage to highlight how wonderful the Earth is and how it sustains all human and animal life is a nice way to foster an appreciation of the Earth in children before introducing them to Climate Change. Some of the more stark footage of the damage we are doing to the Earth might be used more sparingly as discussion points or the lessons on Climate Change might be better taught using some of the other videos and resources instead.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Andy

I like the idea of using the Paxi video to assess the children’s prior knowledge of Greenhouse gases. Some breaks during the video with questions could help with assessing their understanding of the topic and also identifying any misconceptions they may have. One misconception that I come across in many classrooms is the idea that climate change is caused by holes in the ozone layer. Through explaining the cause of global warming, the Paxi video can help to correct some of these misconceptions. I love the idea of assigning different future years to different groups and having them record their climate reports in their own chosen format.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Denis

I like your description of the EO browser.  It takes a bit of work initially to get used to how to navigate it but once you have figured it out it can be very useful as a tool to carry out a cross curricular study of your local area or any other area in the world.  As you said looking at images of the same area in different time periods is a good way to study land use change and a variety of environmental factors and looking at different areas in the same time period is good for comparisons of places in different climate zones or those that experience different weather events.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Fiona

Kay McNulty is a great example of an Irish woman working in STEM and one of the many women who’s work was not recognised until recent years.  I found a short clip from RTE about Kay McNulty here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Oz5jW6wfs and she is also featured in the Dictionary of Irish Biography and was featrured in one of the 6 episodes of the documentary Herstory. Kay’s pioneering work on computer programming would be a lovely tie in with any work on technology and computer programming in the classroom such as BeeBots or Lego WeDo.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Fiona

Kay McNulty is a great example of an Irish woman working in STEM and one of the many women who’s work was not recognised until recent years.  I found a short clip from RTE about Kay McNulty here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Oz5jW6wfs and she is also featured in the Dictionary of Irish Biography and was featrured in one of the 6 episodes of the documentary Herstory. Kay’s pioneering work on computer programming would be a lovely tie in with any work on technology and computer programming in the classroom such as BeeBots or Lego WeDo.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Louise

I love the idea of creating a Dark Sky place. As you said it is a great way to bring together any previous work they may have done on the night sky, light pollution and biodiversity and brings it all together in a creative way that involves lots of cross curricular learning. Having a class discussion on the themes and the aspects they would like to included in their Dark Sky place and then providing the materials for them to express these ideas creatively and present them to the class will be a great way for them to utilise their STEM skills of curiosity, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication and the follow up piece of taking action and creating a “Dark Sky Promise” will tie it all together.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Kieran

Building a collection of stories and traditions inspired by the Dúchas collection is a lovely idea and as you said a great way to build connections between the children and their older relatives and neighbours. I love the idea of creating a book that can be kept as a source of information in the school and perhaps other classes in the future could build on it and add to it. Having oral recordings would be lovely and possibly a way to reach out to older storytellers in the local community or relatives in other parts of Ireland and other countries. Some children could even contribute artwork to illustrate the stories.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Joseph

Newbridge like a lot of towns has experienced rapid growth in recent years and this growth leads to a lot more light pollution particularly when there are large factories and industrial units which often have a lot of unnecessary  night-time lighting. As you said all of this has a negative impact on Biodiversity. Luckily the linear park along the River Liffey is a great place for wildlife and it is good that you can still see bats flying here. The Kildare Bat Group are very active and it would be a nice idea to highlight some of their walks to the children in your class as it would be a good opportunity for them to experience nocturnal wildlife and would tie in nicely with your plans for lighting audits.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Cliodhna

I love your idea for a starter question. It is such a simple question but could lead to really interesting discussions among the children as they try to imagine what might be visible, how much natural light is available from the moon and stars and how that light would vary depending on the phase of the moon and the cloud cover.  It would be interesting to see how the children’s responses would vary depending on whether they are used to a lot of artificial light at night or whether they can see the stars clearly at home. I like the idea of using a combination of maps, photographs, drawings and models to create your dark sky place. Perhaps models could be made to highlight particular features that are also shown on the map.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Edel

You are so lucky to have a forest beside your school. What a great opportunity for the children to be able to explore this habitat and contrast it with the habitats in the school grounds. This would open up lots of discussion around the different nocturnal animals that might be present in the forest and those that might visit the school and also on the contrast of light levels between the school and the forest. Using the reports tab on https://maps.biodiversityireland.ie/Map from the National Biodiversity Data Centre, you could zoom in on the school and forest and generate a report to see if any nocturnal species have been recorded in the area

[Una Halpin]

Hi Shona

You have some lovely ideas here for designing a Dark Sky Place.  I love the idea of creating a map. Perhaps the children could work on different areas of the map and combine smaller pages into one large classroom map with all of the areas marked. This would be a great exercise in map creation including scale, direction and keys. Creating the information sheet on the different nocturnal animals would be a fantastic learning experience for the children as they would need to research Irish nocturnal animals and think about the various habitats they live in.

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