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“Silver” by Walter de la Mare, “The Moon” by Robert Louis Stevenson, “Star Light, Star Bright”, “The Owl and the Pussycat” are some of the poems that immediately come to mind. Also, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” is known by nearly every child. It can be a song as well. Soe other songs are – Catch a Falling Star, Fly Me to the Moon can’t beat a bot of Frank Sinatra! When You Wish Upon a Star (all the Disney stuff will be useful with the kids) and Clair de Lune.
You also have Van Gogh, and he had a few painting that had a night sky focus. He used his talents to really convey the beauty of the night sky, and his painting techniques really helped with the subject matter. His bold colours match the expressive style children naturally use. The swirling skies he painted can be said to echo the movement of Irish weather — wind, clouds, changing light. Also, his paintings match up great with with lessons on constellations, auroras, and moon phases. Children can try and recreate his style using oil pastels, chalk, or paint, and this makes it suitable for all class groupings.The short video clips are a good way to get into the lesson. I might use them in my own lesson – they’re proably good for establishing some empathy with the creatures.
Biodiversity means all the different plants and animals living in our local area. Enniscorthy is my local area, so the children and We can explore it by going outside and looking carefully at the world around the school. In Enniscorthy, we might see birds, insects, trees, flowers, hedgehogs, and maybe even bats at night – that’s the kids – I won’t be in school at night hopefully! Each living thing has its own home and its own way of surviving. Some animals, like birds and butterflies, are active during the day. Others, like bats, owls, and hedgehogs, come out at night. These nocturnal animals need darkness to find food, rest, and stay safe. Light pollution happens when there are too many bright lights at night. Streetlights, security lights, and sports pitch lights can confuse animals. Bats may avoid bright areas, insects can get trapped circling lights, and birds may not sleep properly.
By turning off unnecessary lights and protecting dark spaces, we can help local wildlife stay healthy and safe.
Apparently, street lights are the worst, so we might start with a walk and take photos of the streetlights around the school – are they pointing down, etc. and I also might ask the kids to categorise the lights at night – are they blue or more redish?That’s some contrast between the town of Tralee and Kerry Dark Sky reserve! Very helpful for the lesson, I’d say!
Light pollution is becoming more noticeable in Enniscorthy and the wider Wexford area, even though it’s far from large cities. My own house is in a valley in a very rural area, so the night sky is very clear – although I do have an annoying neighbour with extremely bright lights and completely unnecessary!
Streetlights, house lights, farmyard security lamps and the glow from nearby towns all brighten the night sky. This extra light makes it harder to see stars, planets and the Milky Way. It also affects wildlife in that bats avoid bright areas, insects can become confused, and some animals wake or sleep at the wrong times because it’s not really dark at all.To help my pupils explore this idea, I would begin with simple observations. They could look at the night sky from home and count how many stars they see, then compare this with photos of very dark places. We could walk around the school and note the lights in the area to help them notice where light escapes into the sky. We could possibly use the spectroscopes from The Magic of Light, and investigate different bulbs and screens to see how many colours each light source produces. This links directly to their understanding of white light and colour mixing.
To finish off, the children could create posters encouraging people to turn off unnecessary lights or use downward‑facing outdoor lamps. This would give them a sense of responsibility and show how small changes could help protect our precious darkness.Using a book is a great way to inspire a bit of curiosity and desire to learn. I should have put in dsomething like that in my own lesson!
Lesson using stellarium and the World Wide Telescope
I’ll introduce the lesson by telling the children that we will explore the night sky and outer space using Stellarium and WorldWide Telescope, and that they will learn about stars, constellations, planets, and how the night sky changes in Ireland.
To start off, I’ll show how Stellarium shows the night sky exactly as it looks from Ireland. Children can move around the sky, zoom in on stars, and watch how the moon and planets change over time. The World Wide Telescope allows kids to fly off to planets, moons, and galaxies that are extremely far away. Using Stellarium, I’ll get thje kids to work in pairs to find The Plough, Orion, Cassiopeia, and the North Star. Then they’ll explore moon phases by moving time forward and searching for bright planets such as Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. Then the kids will open the World Wide Telescope and take a guided tour to the Moon, Mars, and clusters of stars. They will explore what planets look like up close and compare them to what they saw in Stellarium.
To finish, the kids will draw a constellation or keep a simple moon diary or create a space passport for a planet they visit.Esero 30
To start with, we would all sit together in a circle and look at pictures of animals. Then I’d ask the children to tell me which animals sleep at night – like we do. And which ones stay awake. Then we’ll look at the nocturnal animals and hopefully the kids will notice that the nocturnal animals often have bigger eye so that they can see better at night. Hopefully one of the kids would mention the bat or owl or hedgehog and how they live in the dark. Then the children would fold the paper showing children all around the world. When they unfold it, they’d see the ring of children holding hands. I’d explain that two opposite children live far apart, one in Europe and the other in Australia at the other side of the world . This will hopefully help them imagine how day and night can be different depending on where you live. After that we’ll build the spinning day‑and‑night model with the pin. As they turn the top circle, they’d see Europe move into the light while Australia moves into the dark. Hopefully that will help them understand that the Earth turns on its own axis once in every 24 hours and the Sun only shines on the half of the Earth that is facing the Sun. To finish the lesson, I’ll bring an orange and a torch and close the blimnds and tun off the lights. The torch will represent the Sun, and the orange will represent the Earth. If we turn the orange, the children will see that one side is bright and the other side is dark. This will hopefully cement the idea of day and night.