[Una Halpin]

Hi Katriona

Although the melting ice caps and the plight of the polar bears have become symbols of climate change, and we can acknowledge that this is one of the many consequences of climate change, it is important for us all to realise that climate change is not simply something that happens far away, but something that has impacts on out local environment and our everyday lives. This is why the focus of Climate Detectives is on local climate issues and the question should be one that relates to the children’s own lives and their local area. This not only makes the problem of climate change more real and relevant but also demonstrates to the children that they have agency and can be empowered to help make a difference. Melting ice caps are a problem that they can’t connect with in any real way and they can’t do anything directly to help polar bears, but by focusing on a single local climate issue, they can take action to help tackle it

[Una Halpin]

Hi Christy

I like the idea of the children conducting their own research into the properties of each planet before constructing their planetary tubes.  Allowing them to choose a range of materials to represent the surfaces of the planets is a great way of recording the information they have gathered on the composition of the planets and locating them around the room according to distance from the sun is another good way of recording information.  Starting with one planet and working on it as a class is a good way to explain the concepts before allowing them to work on their own individual planets in groups.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Megan

I love the idea of asking the question “Can we use the sun to tell the time?” and asking the children to discuss it in pairs. The Paxi video should hopefully have prompted them to start considering the movement of the Earth to open up the discussion and your approach of standing back and only prompting them with questions as needed is a great way of encouraging independent thought. Bringing the focus to fair testing and predicting is an important step as is your focus on data collection and using the data to answer the initial question and communicate their results and conclusion.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Katriona

Welcome to the course. Your classroom sound like a wonderful environment for fostering STEM skills in a hands on and interactive way and you clearly understand the importance of inquiry based STEM education and weaving STEM thinking throughout everything the children do. I hope you find lots of inspiration in the modules of this course to help you continue to encourage STEM thinking among your pupils and encouraging them to become Scientists, Engineers and Mathematical thinkers

[Una Halpin]

Hi Cliodhna

I agree that role playing and building a story around the issue of climate change can really help to turn the real life data from the Teal tool and the predicted future weather data from an abstract concept into something they can begin to understand. The past weather data in the Teal tool is real life data and the future predictions also have a very strong scientific basis as they are based on computer models of climate so if they are using the Teal tool to base their future predictions on, then they are based on real scientific data.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Cassandra

I’m glad you enjoyed the module and have found resources that can help you to start recording biodiversity with your pupils. Some of the short online courses from the National Biodiversity Data Centre might be very useful for you to get you started and the All Ireland Pollinator Plan has a great series of lessons on Pollinators that you could use with your class. The FIT count is a great way to get started. It does take a little bit of practice to start telling the main groups apart but you could maybe start with a simplified version where the children simply record the total number of insects and once you and they start to watch them, then features like wings, eyes and antennae will be more obvious. Getting the children to take pictures of what they see is a great idea as it then gives them time to look up the websites for identification. I often do that myself if I’m out for a walk.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Ellen

That is a very detailed plan for introducing maps with a clear step by step approach. I like the way you plan to introduce questions on things like scale and direction while they are drawing their classroom maps, so that they start the process and have to figure out how to represent the size of the classroom and the relative positions of objects in the room. The knowledge that they gain through this simple exercise can then be carried forwards into their study of Google Maps and GeoHive. Remember that as an Ordnance Survey of Ireland mapping tool, GeoHive can only be used to study different regions in Ireland and not other countries.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Maria

That sounds like a fantastic project based around the Hill of Uisneach. I love the idea of the children taking on the role of different characters and it’s great that you have included animals living on the hill as well as the human characters. It’s great that you have included so many different ways of bringing the history and legends to life. The drama and visual art aspects combined with their individual written or oral stories would really capture the children’s imaginations. There is also an interesting geological and geographical aspect to the hill as it is formed from karst Limestone and the Catstone is a large glacial erratic deposited by the ice thousands of years ago https://gsi.geodata.gov.ie/downloads/Geoheritage/Reports/WH009_Hill_of_Uisneach.pdf

 

[Una Halpin]

Hi Pauline

Some lovely ideas there for music and artwork. I think I will have the song “Somewhere Out There” stuck in my head for the rest of the day. I’ve looked up the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem to read later as I love his poetry.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Dolores

Just to note that you have posted your reply to module 4 in module 3 so you might want to copy and paste your response into the correct forum.

This is a very comprehensive plan for exploring the effects of light pollution on Biodiversity. You have covered lots of different aspects from local investigations on Biodiversity to the importance of protecting all plants and animals in an ecosystem and the consideration of the effects of light pollution.  I love the idea of creating models of night-time habitats.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Isobel

That is a really great Climate detectives question. It is clear and concise, is relevant to the children’s everyday lives and is easy to collect data. It can also lead to discussions on the importance of green spaces in general and especially the importance of urban trees and green space for controlling the urban heat island effect. I recently did something like this on a small scale with a class where they chose a number of locations around the school yard on a sunny day to measure temperature. I’m sure that doing it over a longer period of time in a variety of weather conditions would give some interesting data.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Patricia

I like the idea of identifying or creating a dark area in the school garden and encouraging wild plants or planting garden flowers to attract night-time insects. This guide may be of use to you https://pollinators.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/AIPP-Nocturnal-Guide-2023-WEB.pdf. Building bat boxes would also be a good idea. If you have a local bat group or a local men’s shed, they might be able to help with this. Some of the children might even have suitable areas for bat boxes in their gardens at home which would be a nice way to involve parents.

 

[Una Halpin]

Hi Aine

I like the idea of using the Night Sky Journal and the variation in what the children record to map out areas of good visibility and poor visibility. That combined with measuring light pollution as part of the Globe at Night Citizen Science initiative may help to show how some areas have a bigger problem than others, particularly if the children’s homes are spread over a wider area. A nice idea might be to extend this over a number of weeks so that if any children are going away to another part of the country over the weekend, they might make a note of whether it is darker or brighter at night and what they can see.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Megan

I love the idea of using a variety of Dublin bridges as inspiration for your bridge design project rather than just a single bridge. I also like your emphasis on the river itself and how the Geography of the river Liffey and the natural and built environment in the area influences bridge design and location.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Niamh

That’s a great idea for an investigation on rainfall considering that you have two distinct areas that are affected differently by rainfall. You have a clear plan for gathering scientific data and links with many different curricular areas. One thing I would suggest, which you have probably already considered is setting aside a small reference area in each of the two zones where you plant the same types of plants in each. This way, you would be comparing the growth rates of the same type of plants in the different situations. While your main focus is rainfall, you might also want to consider other factors that might affect plant growth such as slight levels. You could measure light levels at various times during the day in both areas using a free light meter app installed on a phone or tablet.

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