[Carmel Wright]

HI Caoimhe,

Thanks for sharing! I am delighted to see your reflections on these resources, and that you find them fun, hands-on on and accessible. Like you say, it gets learners noticing things, asking questions and discussing findings. I hope you get the opportunity to make use of these with your fourth class in the rapidly approaching academic year.

I like your points about proverbs, considering how recent in human history we’ve developed the modern technology to monitor weather and share it across media platforms, proverbs would have been so important for work and day-to-day life in its absence. Like you say so well, nature gives us plenty of clues!

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Marguerite,

Thanks for sharing this lovely lesson plan on your local Kilcullen Bridge. The paper bridge challenge is a great hands-on way to explore the various bridge designs and their features.

Recycled materials are such a great (and cost-effective!) source of supplies. It’s a great way to model responsible use of materials and transforming trash into something new. Using LEGO and Knex is another suitable alternative-there are so many ways this can be achieved.

It sounds like you’ve chosen your bridge wisely, with its rich history and costumes to reenact the battle of Kilcullen! Great to see such local interest in heritage!

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Fiona,

Welcome to the course, and thanks for sharing your sun observation plans.

I like your plan to carry this activity out over an extended period of time, and include related activities like the sundial.

Lovely to see that you are including sketching and recording of observations each time, to build up a set of data that can be used to see the patterns of where the sun rises and sets, etc.

You mention outdoor exploration, and I think that is so important to make time for activities like these, which are great for not only learning and critical thinking skills, but also a movement break and a breath of fresh air.

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for sharing. You make a great point. Autumn is a great time to take a closer look at the night sky. It’s a great theme to run for the month of October, in the run-up to Halloween.

I like your plan to provide learners with a simple map-making the activity accessible to all learners at home. A planet watch journal is a lovely way for them to build their observation and recording skills. Some lovely examples of questions to make learners reflect and make predictions.

Lovely idea to create short stories with a space explorer protagonist, and a great cross-curricular link to English too.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the course!

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Grace,

Thanks for sharing. You make a great point about how much artificial light we waste, which of course, comes at an energy and environmental cost too.

Talking to the class as a group and eliciting information about the night sky outside their homes it will provide a nice contrast between light-polluted and dark sky areas within the region.

Making a map is a lovely, hands-on way to record findings from exploring the school and surrounding areas. Globe at Night is a very worthwhile initiative to join, and it will support learners’ understanding and observation skills in this important topic.

 

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Catriona,

Thanks for sharing your list-and what a list it is! Some lovely choices included, and some new to me too! Lovely to see an Irish poem included, too.

You’ve some lovely ideas about how you’d use these pieces in the classroom to inspire art. I love the idea of creating an acrostic poem on this theme, and with a strategic choice of words, it can easily become a shorter or longer task for learners. Senior classes may enjoy the challenge of doing this as Gaeilge too.

I hope you enjoyed the course and gained some new ideas for the coming year.

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Grainne,

Welcome to the course.

Thanks for sharing your honest and open reflections on how your own STEM classes compare to the outline Liston’s paper provides.
It is common for teachers to feel ill-equipped to teach STEM in this way, and I applaud your courage to admit a “lack of confidence in exploring STEM topics and I feel I lack a depth of understanding.”
I hope that as you proceed through this course, you will see that:

A. No one needs to be an expert in STEM to deliver a terrific STEM class! The resources provided give the necessary background information, and it is perfectly okay to not know the answer to every potential question that may arise. The question can become part of a KWL chart. Your role is to facilitate learning rather than provide all the answers.

B. You also don’t need to know in advance of a design activity what the perfectly correct design is. That is for your learners to discover together throughout the process. It is also what makes it such an exciting lesson-who knows what your curious minds will conceive and create?

C. Following the Curious Minds framework really helps to create a comprehensive lesson plan.

D. A good viewpoint for STEM design and make activities is that we are either right, or we learn-either way, it’s a win!

I hope you enjoy the course and gain the confidence to explore the more hands-on resources in the coming academic year.

[Carmel Wright]

Hello Michelle,

What a terrific plan for exploring biodiversity throughout the seasons. I really like the detail you have covered in this and the scope of what you plan to achieve, from regular nature walks, species identification, to reflecting on how to improve biodiversity on school grounds, designing and making birdfeeders, and installing a camera for birdwatching for schoolwide use.

On the point of wildflowers, there is a lot in the media about ensuring that any wildflowers selected are truly native. Read here for more information on this: Wildflowers – to plant or not to plant? » All-Ireland Pollinator Plan.

The simplest, easiest and free thing to do is to review and revise how your lawns are managed and maintained. It can be very impactful. Eliminating pesticides and mowing with much less frequency is a real win for pollinators, and reduces the workload on the school maintenance team-a win all round! It could also inspire learners to consider discussing this in their own homes-it is a real shift in mindset to see a grown-out lawn as richly biodiverse, and not an unruly mess to be mown!

[Carmel Wright]

Hello Emma,

Thanks for sharing. I am delighted to see that you found this module worthwhile, learning more about biodiversity and reflecting on how to include these activities in the coming academic year.

The All-Ireland Pollinator Plan is a great addition to the work already underway in your school- I saw in another post that you already are working hard on establishing a school garden-it’s another wonderful reason to get learners outside, connecting to nature, enjoying a movement break and see what’s waiting to be found in their locality.

Lovely ideas to use tablets to photograph trees and identify them, with technology, maths and art skill development opportunities too.

Wishing you all the best with this activity in the coming year!

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Luke,

Thanks for sharing.

You’ve created a lovely plan to explore dark skies and the impact of light pollution, focusing on making it applicable in their locality and adding a creative aspect with posters, poems, and stories, extending the theme into other subjects.

It’s great to see how you are planning to extend this activity into their homes, getting them to count visible stars. It’s a wonderful way to develop their observation and data recording skills, bringing this topic to life and raising awareness of the issue within the wider school community. Shorter winter days are ideal for running this to ensure it’s not too late and doesn’t impact bedtime routines.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the course and get the opportunity to run this activity with your learners in the coming academic year.

[Carmel Wright]

Hello Renee,

Thanks for sharing your research plan. This looks like a really interesting plan to engage your learners in the topic of climate change. I like how you are focusing on exploring the phenological shift over a 30-year period-it’s a real concern in terms of biodiversity populations.

There is a lot of great information online on this topic and several gardens here in Ireland that record this data, see here for more information: Plant Phenology – CSO – Central Statistics Office. It’s a terrific opportunity for learners to learn much more about the natural world and connect to nature. It can be interesting to discuss what the future will bring as a result and its impact on native and invasive species too.

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Eimear,

Welcome to the course, and thanks for sharing your sun observation plan. I like how you have summed up the aim perfectly, “The sun appears to move across the sky and shadows change as a result”.

Great to see a plan to observe the sun at three specific times each day, along with opportunities for home observations and the use of notes to record what is being observed, collating data on a collective wall chart.

It can be interesting to mention the role of the sun for Ireland’s native species too, such as the common lizard, which becomes immobilised in the cold and needs the warmth from the sun to get around, hibernating throughout the winter.

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Breda,

Thanks for sharing your plans, this sounds like an interesting session you have planned for your class, with plenty of math integration and some really well-chosen links too, such as the marine section of the EPA link. I like how you are including a learner-friendly News Today to see the real-life application of math in our world, a great idea.

With fish numbers in decline and sprat levels in particular an area of concern, it could be a springboard for a future project on the shifting baselines of marine life.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the course and the last few days of holidays!

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Patrick,

Welcome to the course, and thanks for sharing your reflections. It’s lovely to read how the interactive and diverse nature of the resources provided in “Nose High Up in the Sky” makes this project fun and STEM come alive! There is considerable potential to develop an array of skills within these resources.

I do hope you take the opportunity to roll out the weather station project this year. Considering how simple and accessible the instruments for it are, it provides a wealth of learning opportunities.

It’s a lovely idea to connect to other countries’ weather, especially if it’s relevant to some of your international students, taking the learning from a local level to a global one. It’s also a great segue to talking about the importance of following the same scientific methods and practices globally, and asking questions like, if one country measures temperature in the sun and another in the shade, can those data points be compared? Etc.,

[Carmel Wright]

Hi Susie,

Thanks for sharing! You’ve got a great way with words to describe what you are seeing in a fun and accessible way. I couldn’t agree with you more on how mad it is when you think about what is happening in Earth’s orbit that we are often completely unaware of!

There is a lot going on every night, making it a great activity for learners to engage with any day. At the rate the ISS orbits, it’s easy to find a time to spot it. I did not know the Starlink Satellites are freaking people out as a train of lights! On the topic of Starlink, it’s astonishing that about three in four objects in low-Earth orbit belong to Starlink, such is the scale of its presence. There has been a lot in the news this year about how the sun is impacting their satellites. It might be an interesting extension research topic.

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