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This is a great lesson plan which integrates the subjects of Maths, Geography, history and Art. It could be adapted to any local river.
Research a famous scientist or engineer associated with your local area and describe how you would use that person as inspiration for classroom science investigations
I have chosen Ellen Hutchins, who was born in 1785 in Ballylickeyb, Co Cork. She was Ireland’s first female botanist. Her focus was on plants that do not produce seeds, such as mosses, liverworts, lichen, and seaweeds, and she collected and identified hundreds of specimens in her short lifetime, discovering new species and rare plants, which brought her to the attention of prominent botanists.
Ellen died before even reaching her 30th birthday in 1815, but her name lives on in numerous plant species. Among them is Conferva hutchinsae, named by Lewis Weston Dyllwin.
Hutchins’ specimens are among the most significant collections in the UK, Ireland and the US. Most of her specimens and famously detailed illustrations now reside in the Royal Botanic Gardens, though other collections can be found in Sheffield City Museum, Trinity College Dublin, the Natural History Museum in London, the Linnean Society in London, Botaniske Museum in Oslo, and the New York Botanical Garden.I would incorporate the story of Ellen Hutchins with our science study of plants, investigating photosynthesis, discovering how moss reproduces, identifying different environments or conditions where moss grows and linking with climate. Questioning why it grows in damp environments or on north facing roofs, wall or trees? Investigating how it survives without roots, a stem or seeds and discussing fungus and alga,
As part of our study we would go on a nature trail in search of moss, liverworts, lichen, and source some seaweed. We would further research her work online and discover illustrations from library books.Emma, this s a lovely lesson to make wind turbines which I am looking forward to trying out in my school.
Design Challenge: Design a bridge- Class Level 3rd/4th
Prompt Visit a bridge from the local area or look at pictures of bridges from Ireland and from around the world.
Wondering Introduce the topic by asking the following questions:
What is a bridge? Where would you find a bridge. Have you seen a bridge in your locality? What types of bridges make a good bridge? Do you know any famous bridges? What shapes are used in bridge construction What types of materials are bridges made from? What type of engineer works on bridges?
Why do we build bridges? Discuss: Bridges are structures built over railroad tracks, roads, rivers or some other obstacle. They allow people or vehicles to cross from one side to another. Bridges must be built strong enough to safely support their own weight as well as the weight of the people and vehicles that pass over. There are many bridges over the motorway.
New words / vocabulary: Bridge, Span, Forces, Engineer, Collapse, Corrugated, Compression, Tension
Planning: Decide on the type of bridge and its purpose. Set the criteria such as size and scale. Decide on materials. Draw a plan on paper or using ICT. Groups predict which bridge design will be the strongest.
Making: Divide the class into four groups. Each group are given different materials to make a bridge such as Lego, straws, boxes, paper, rulers, books and a selection of recycled materials or natural objects.
Evaluating: What did you like most about your bridge? was the bridge strong enough or high enough? Did the bridge follow the initial plan? What problems did you encounter? What did you learn from the process? Children showcase their work to other classes and explain the design process
Cross curricular links: Maths: Shape and space, measures, weights; History: explore features of local environment, technological developments over time; Geography: human environments, features of the built environment; Visual arts: making constructions, make drawings from observations to analyse the structures of buildings, looking and responding to collections or photographs of built structures.
Emma, I love your tips to increase pollinators especially the no mow let it grow! I will put some of these tips in place in my own garden.
Seasonal biodiversity project for the school year-A scavenger hunt challenge-observe seasonal change-2nd/3rd class
Resources: fact sheets/ picture check lists, magnifying glasses, small containers, recording sheets, digital camera, tablets, books & keys from the national biodiversity data centre, websites, apps: seek, picture this,
Time frame: three outdoor visits for each season with follow up activities indoors.
Season: Spring
First outing: The children look around the surrounding area or school garden and see what natural items they can observe and tick them off when they see them on a list or photograph them. Focus on observation and questioning.
Second outing: Spring is a great time to notice the sounds of nature. How many of these can you hear? Challenge yourself to take photographs of the following things. For some of these, there will be the extra challenge of being patient and staying still and quiet long enough to get the shot. We all like to smell flowers sometimes but there are other smells in our gardens too. See how many different smells you notice in the garden. Flowers, herbs, leaves, fruit and vegetables all have different smells.
Third outing: Each person is given a matchbox or other small container with a lid. Challenge your pupils to see who can collect the highest number of different items. An example of a Spring Scavenger Hunt would be to find: A bud about to burst, A spider, 3 different coloured flowers, A dandelion, A feather, A daisy, Some moss, New leaves on a tree, An evergreen leaf
Curriculum links:
Art: Make your own colour match sheet using scraps from a magazine and see if you can find colours in your garden to match each colour on the sheet. Drawing observed or collected items.
Literacy: Scavenger Hunt Challenge Word or Letter Challenge: Pick a word or maybe use the letters of your name and find something in your garden that begins with each letter of the word. You can either make a list or collect the items. For a longer challenge see if you can find something that begins with each letter of the alphabet. This could carry on over a number of days and will probably involve some creative descriptions. New vocabulary of observed or collected items.
ICT: researching using websites or apps
Science: observe, identify and examine local habitats and the study of wildlife and plants.
The above actives would be carried out for the other seasons noting the different species and changes in each season.Hi Emma, this is a great lesson plan linking in with other curricular areas. I am interested in using the online data sets resource for maths. Thanks!
Map creating in 2nd/3rd class
Wondering: At the beginning of the lesson, I would use a visual prompt on the interactive whiteboard for example google maps of the local area which the children are familiar with and discuss what they can identify on the map. Introduce new vocabulary to do with maps. We would discuss the following questions
Exploring: Exploring different maps such as physical maps, tourists map, online maps. What other information could we put on a map? Vegetation, locations etc. What is a map? What sort of things are shown on a map? How would I make my own map? What types of information can be included on a map. What size will our map be and what if we can’t fit all of the information on
Discovering
After deciding where we will go on a walk of the local area, I will ask the children to take note of our route. Making them aware of their immediate environment. The children could use a simple check list prepared by the teacher and they can tick if they observe any of the items on the list for example: bridge, roads, houses, rivers, treesMaking: Gather materials to make a sensory map using small pebbles, twigs etc . Following our class trip and discussion the class can divide into pairs or groups Guide the children to make the basic outline of the map. Then the children can stick on the materials to represent the various structures, vegetation etc
Evaluating: :After creating their maps, children should present their maps to the class and explain the different features.
Discuss what they liked most about their map.
Which part was the most fun to make?
What was the biggest challenge and how they overcame it?STEM Lesson on mirrors with 3rd/4th
Lesson: Mirror WritingSkills: Investigating and experimenting
Equipment: Small flat plastic mirrors White paper Pencils Markers
Background: General discussion about mirrors and reflection. Explain how reflection works- When white light meets a shiny surface like a mirror, it bounces off it and is reflected back. In these activities when you look in the mirror the top of your picture becomes the bottom and vice versa. This makes it very difficult to draw around, especially when you change direction.
Pupils working in pairs
Introduction Activity: In the following activities when you look in the mirror the top of your picture becomes the bottom and vice versa. This makes it very difficult to draw around, especially when you change direction.
With a mirror standing at right angles to a piece of paper the pupils can to go over a simple shape with a marker while looking in the mirror only. Pupils can write their name on a piece of paper while only looking at the mirror (and not looking at the paper). Then looking only in the mirror, with a pencil the pupils can try to find their way around a maze from start to finish.
Following on from this the pupils can complete the following three activities looking in the mirror while doing them.
1. Draw a simple shape (e.g. a star) on a piece of white paper and stand a mirror behind it.
Looking in the mirror only try to draw over the shape with a coloured marker.
2. With the mirror standing up on a plain piece of white paper and looking only in the mirror the pupils try to write their name on the paper so that it looks normal writing in the mirror.
3. Stand the mirror on the dotted line behind the maze and tilt it forward a little so that you can see the maze clearly in the mirror. Looking only in the mirror, use a pencil to find their way from the start to the finish.
Questioning: How many times did they cross a line?
Thanks Christine. This is a well structured lesson plan for science week with some lovely ideas and cross curricular links for each day. Lots of useful links provided which the pupils would love.
DESIGN AND MAKE A PAPER ROCKET Suggested Class Level Middle and Senior
Introduction Discussion and background information with whole class Real rockets get their energy from burning fuels emitting gases from the back of them, which send them forwards. Moving air can move many things. A light breeze can move leaves on trees, while a hurricane can cause great damage to buildings and even blow ships onto rocks. Electricity is made on wind farms from moving air. Sailing ships rely on moving air to drive them.
Trigger questions What is the hardest part about going into space?). Why is this? How does something huge and heavy like a spacecraft manage to break away from Earth’s gravity? What is a rocket? How does it work? Where do these gases come from? For something to burn what do you need. But there is no air in Space! So how do the fuels burn?
Watch a launch rocket video clip on YouTube
Making the rocket:
Materials: A4 sheet of paper, straw (wide diameter if possible), scissors, pencil (of approximately the same diameter: as the straw), Sellotape and measuring tape. Activity Children should be encouraged to Design and Make their own rocket, given the above materials.
Cross-curricular links: maths: The children should predict how far their rocket will go. What instrument will they choose to measure the actual distance? How will they decide what to measure in order to make it a fair test? They should launch their rockets a number of times, firstly estimating the distances travelled, and then measuring them and taking the average distance. Does the angle make a difference to the distance travelled? Geography: Planet Earth in Space Art: Rocket Design.
Conclusion Can you think of any other ways of making a paper rocket which might go further? Follow-up activity: Try out different lengths of rocket. Does a longer or shorter rocket make a difference to the distance it travels?
DESIGN AND MAKE A PAPER ROCKET Suggested Class Level Middle and Senior
Introduction Discussion and background information with whole class Real rockets get their energy from burning fuels emitting gases from the back of them, which send them forwards. Moving air can move many things. A light breeze can move leaves on trees, while a hurricane can cause great damage to buildings and even blow ships onto rocks. Electricity is made on wind farms from moving air. Sailing ships rely on moving air to drive them.
Trigger questions: What is the hardest part about going into space?). Why is this? How does something huge and heavy like a spacecraft manage to break away from Earth’s gravity? What is a rocket? How does it work? Where do these gases come from? For something to burn what do you need. But there is no air in Space! So how do the fuels burn?
Watch a launch rocket video clip on YouTube
Making the rocket: Materials: A4 sheet of paper, straw (wide diameter if possible), scissors, pencil (of approximately the same diameter: as the straw), Sellotape and measuring tape.
Activity Children should be encouraged to Design and Make their own rocket, given the above materials.
Cross-curricular links: maths: The children should predict how far their rocket will go. What instrument will they choose to measure the actual distance? How will they decide what to measure in order to make it a fair test? They should launch their rockets a number of times, firstly estimating the distances travelled, and then measuring them and taking the average distance. Does the angle make a difference to the distance travelled? Geography: Planet Earth in Space Art: Rocket Design.
Conclusion Can you think of any other ways of making a paper rocket which might go further? Follow-up activity: Try out different lengths of rocket. Does a longer or shorter rocket make a difference to the distance it travels?
Hi Irene,
A really nice lesson on where people live. It would be really interesting for all the children but especially EAL children. It would give them a platform to show case their cultures, houses and climate from different countries of the world.
Online Resources and Tools
Some of the resources I would love to use with the pupils would be the Stellarium web site and Astronomy picture of the day. As an introduction I would show an astronomy picture each day and encourage discussion about the details of each picture. I think with older pupils it would instill a sense of wonder and curiosity. I would follow up by using the Stellarium web to give them a platform to investigate the night time sky by clicking on an image in the sky which will bring up instant information and identify on what they are seeing at that moment. They can zoom into the landscape to identify objects or focus on the constellations. As a follow up activity, I would use drawings to assess understanding from the EU Universe awareness programme using the pre-activity template before observing the night-time sky and using the post activity template after observing the sky. Another follow up activity from the EU universe awareness programme I would use are the Astro card game for identification and classification of planets, star clusters or galaxies. I also like the feature that they can keep a record of their observations using the log book, they can use their own location or view from any other location and they have the option to change the time and date. I am looking forward to using this fantastic resource in the classroom.
