Technical Requirements
All our courses require broadband Internet access (Min of 5mb recommended) and participants need to be familiar with using the internet, downloading and installing software.
Course Objectives:
The objective of the course is to assist participants in using teaching approaches that support science and numeracy skills in an integrated way across the curriculum for junior classes (Infants to 2nd class).
The course elements include:
- A wide variety of classroom activities for junior students based on Earth in Space, the solar system, the Moon, the Sun, stars, rockets and aliens.
- Pedagogical approaches to how young children learn about the Earth in Space, the Sun and the Moon.
- Use of inquiry-based teaching and learning to support practical investigations in the classroom.
- School Self Evaluation aims with an emphasis on evaluating and developing Science Skills.
- Class plans to engage children with Space Week.
- Aistear and Space planning
Expected Outcomes
Appreciate how space can be used as a theme in a wide range of curricular contexts.
Identify opportunities to apply mathematics and science skills in a cross-curricular way.
Understand how to conduct a class investigation, including the use of triggers, starter questions and how to “take the next step”
Describe how the Moon as a theme promotes young children’s understanding of a wide range of astronomy and space concepts.
Identify, use and create activities with space, rockets and aliens as an imaginative theme in their teaching.
Describe the benefits of schools’ participation in the SFI Discover Science & Maths Awards
Identify and use online resources and tools to support the use of Space as a theme.
Plan future engagement with Space Week, appropriate to their own school organisation
Understand how to apply the school self-evaluation guidelines to their own teaching, as they consider how STEM can be improved throughout the school.