[Una Halpin]

Hi Alan

That sounds like a fantastic idea a local project. I love the idea of the children creating a walking trail that incorporates local history and landscape with maps the design and construction of local buildings, and I’m sure it would be of interest to many local people. Perhaps you could link up with the local library to display the children’s work and perhaps have copies of their trail available.  You might find these reports from the GSI useful for your project https://www.gsi.ie/en-ie/publications/Pages/The-Geological-Heritage-of-Wicklow.aspx and https://www.geoschol.com/counties/WICKLOW_GEOLOGY.pdf

[Una Halpin]

Hi Laura

Using George Halpin s inspiration for a walking tour of Dublin Bay and a project on lighthouses. There was a fantastic programme on RTE a few years ago called Great Lighthouses of Ireland, which covered the work of George Halpin and many of the lighthouses around Ireland. It is now available on the RTE Player. This is a link to a resource on Lighthouses that I developed for Engineers week a few years ago on Lighthouses https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/Engineers-Week-Lighthouses-2019.pdf

 

[Una Halpin]

Hi Emma

I love the idea of tying in Francis Beaufort and the Beaufort scale with monitoring the wind and daily weather in school. The link to making sailboats is a lovely one too and you could also tie in to the study of wind energy and the optimum wind speeds for generating electricity from wind turbines.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Emer

I agree that brainstorming with the children and getting them to come up with the question is the best policy for a Climate Detectives project. It is also good to have considered the question beforehand so that you can give them guidance if they come up with questions that are too broad, not well defined or not based on a local problem. Your question is a good one that meets all the criteria and would be fun and engaging for the children. Extending the learning by comparing their own local area with other countries to look at flooding problems and solutions is a fantastic idea.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Sharon

I agree that weather and climate are topics that are relevant for every class at primary school. As you, said observing and recording the weather are activities that happen to some extent in every infant class, but more detailed observations of the weather can be revisited in older classes where they can design their own instruments and record extra parameters such as cloud cover, humidity and air pressure.  The idea of climate too can be introduced from an early age through discussions on seasons and weather in different countries before they actually cover climate in an older class.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Sharon

I agree that weather and climate are topics that are relevant for every class at primary school. As you, said observing and recording the weather are activities that happen to some extent in every infant class, but more detailed observations of the weather can be revisited in older classes where they can design their own instruments and record extra parameters such as cloud cover, humidity and air pressure.  The idea of climate too can be introduced from an early age through discussions on seasons and weather in different countries before they actually cover climate in an older class.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Shannon

I agree that pairing the data from the Teal tool with classroom weather collection is a really good way to use this tool.  The more integration we have between online tools and practical classroom investigations, the better it is all around. In this way, children get to see how their own small scale investigations and data collection follow the same basic processes as the work of scientists and engineers working on much bigger projects and get to understand how this data is collected. It also makes the online data  more real and avoids the trap that we may inadvertently fall into of relying too much on digital tools and video without engaging in the necessary hands-on STEM work. A downloadable worksheet would be a great addition to the Teal resource. Perhaps you could create a very simple one to start with and then get older children involved in free exploration of the tool and get them to come up with their own questions to create a worksheet for a younger class.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Mona

It is great to hear that you enjoyed the videos and resources in this module and that you can see their usefulness in your classroom. Climate Change can be often be portrayed as a very complex topic and media reports are so often presented in such complicated language that many people don’t understand the basic message, so it is great to have a range of plain language resources and practical demonstrations to use with children. I agree that the Teal tool takes a bit of work to get started, but once you start playing around with it, it is very engaging and accessible.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Emer

Your outdoor classroom sounds like a great place to place your weather station and record the weather. It is fantastic that you have a school podcast and I love the idea of adding a weekly weather report where the pupils can present their findings from analysing the weekly data. The tips on dressing for the weather are a great idea as that is something that Irish people are particularly bad at. I also love the idea of expanding the reports over time to include more levels of information in the podcast or in displays and the school website. As the children in your class expand their own knowledge on climate and climate change, they can be educating others in the school through interpreting and sharing what they have discovered

[Una Halpin]

Hi Claire

One of my favourite parts of this course is learning about all of the wonderful Irish Scientists and Engineers and how they can be used to inspire children and link to classroom STEM investigations. It is particularly good to ear about all of the Irish women involved in STEM, many of whom like Kay McNulty did not receive any public acknowledgement of their achievements at the time. I hadn’t heard of Kay McNulty myself but it sounds like her work made a very important contribution and her story provides a fantastic link to your classroom work on coding.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Patricia

I love your idea of basing a project all around the River Liffey and you have outlined many curriculum links to Geography, History, Science, the arts and music.  Sketching and photographing what they find on their walks is a great way to build observation skills in children and I love the idea of artwork based on minibeasts as it will encourage observation of the body parts of insects and maybe discussion on adaptations to their environment. I love the idea of creating stories, plays and music and performing these.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Natasha

I love the idea of constructing a sundial to mark the opening of the new school building. Looking at the plans for the new school building to choose a location for the sundial is a great link with lots of different areas.  It is a great link with geography through the use of maps and plans to look at orientation of the yard and possible light levels. It is also a great link with engineering and the work that goes into designing and building a new school. It would be lovely if all of the pupils’ preparatory work on sundials could lead to them designing and constructing a permanent sundial for the new school

[Una Halpin]

Hi Anna

It’s great that your pupils love being in the garden so much both for gardening and relaxing. It sounds like it could be a great place for your sundial.  The project could include an assessment of light levels throughout the garden to find the best location for the sundial. This could also lead to investigations on the best places to locate sun loving plants and those that prefer shade which would be a nice tie in. I love the idea of the older class designing and constructing the sundial and then sharing their work and knowledge with other classes.

[Una Halpin]

Hi Maura

I really like your plan for exploring the topic of light pollution with your pupils as it includes lots of aspects from researching the problem, to recording and mapping light levels, designing solutions and taking action. I love the idea of the showcase event where the children demonstrate their better lighting designs to parents and other pupils and also the records of star visibility and the photo diary and pledges. As this is an area, where few people are aware of the issues, your pupils have a great opportunity to take the lead and educate others,

[Una Halpin]

Hi Laura

That sounds like a lovely plan to use the satellite imagery from the EO browser to study changes in vegetation and land use in your area over time and to relate it to the children’s own experiences. Using it as a prompt for wider discussions about changes in land use and to encourage the children to consider what might happen in the future is also a good idea. Geohive would be a good complement to this study as you can look at not only a variety of maps and aerial photographs of the local area but also add information from census data and other data sets. Also some practical map making outdoors would greatly add to the children’s understanding of how this map data is gathered

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