Earth sciences diary

21/02/2020 Gimm´s Waldorf calendar is a good material to use in primary schools as the colours representates seasons and teacher can work time and changes of the Sun with the students. Besides, sundial points the sticks towards the North (shadows). It is important to use the real Sun for asking questions to our students and make them reflect about real facts. After this introduction of useful materials that we can use in our future class of primary to teach the main concepts of the Universe, we have focused on the atmosphere topic. The Atmosphere is a layer of the Earth which envelopes the Earth´s Surface. It is formed by gases: the main compund is the nytrogen . Ais is made of gases. Another important concept that we have been studying today is the difference between weather and climate. The composition of Earth changed because of the appearence of plants and bacterias which perform photosynthesis and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide. Thi

19/02/2020   We have started the class exposing different characteristics of the Moon by a brainstorming:   - Earth´s satallite - Two movements - Ph aces - It doesn´t have atmosphere - It brights because reflects the light of the Sun - Is smaller than the Earth: a quarter of the size of the Earth     This brainstorming has helped me to realize that I knew more things about the moon than I believed.   Then, we have seen a video in which the main words have been the following ones: crescent, gibbous, waving and wanning . It has been really useful to know about them.   Question: Why do we see only one face from the Earth? We have represented the answer in class. One student was the moon and another the earth. The earth was spinning much faster and the Earth can only see one face from the Earth.   Phaces of the moon:           We have finished the class with the eclipse definition: some ob

14/02/2020 As I have said in my last post, here is the universe mock-up that I have made with my team work.   https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j3br__XVxGnDID6cSTsdUTWmCRA8Z-7M/view   The class has started with the concept of the Earth and its main characteristics:   The Earth is a planet which is made up of spheres and its satellite is called The moon . It moves in four ways: rotation, revolution, precession and nutation. The rotation movement  explains that it takes 24 hours to get to the same point and this movement causes day and night. The revolution movement is when the Earth moves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit and it takes 365 days to finish one revolution. The precession movement  is caused by the gravitational influence of the Sun and other places. Nutation is the perturbation of the axis of the Earth. Earth axis is tilted 23,5º from the ecliptic plane. - Equinox: same day and night length (autum and spring) - Solstice : greates differen

12/02/2020 We have started the class with the realization of the mock-up outside the classroom . For my group, it was a difficult job as the distance between the planets were too  large. However, we had the idea of using google maps in order to represent the distances. D ue to the difficulties that we found we could not finish it. So, in the next post I will show the final result.                         To conclude the class, we have been discussing about the overuse of plastic which belongs to the ICAN methodology, more specifically to the second step; imagine . Besides, we had to propose solutions to promote the use of reusable bottles at Ces Don Bosco . Some of them were the following ones: - Design a Ces Don Bosco bottle - Account in Instagram-raffle - Collect signatures - Questionary - Visual campaign - Workshops   It is important to know if the people want to achieve the change or what we can do is to encourage them to do so.                      

7/02/2020     Today the teacher has given the instructions to know how to build a universe mock-up taking into account the concept of scale.       This Project uses the methodology of learning by doing as we have to think about the scale and use a rule of three to calculate measurements in relation to our mock-up. The only clue the teacher gave us is that we can do the scale with a basketball or pilates ball. We have choosen the pilates ball. The results obtained are shown before:             To conclude, doing projects helps students to investigate by themselves in order to achieve a meaningful knowledge.             

5/02/2020 Today we have started the class with a thinking routine called "See, think and wonder". We have gone to the playground and we have looked around us to answer the questions but taking into account that the topic was "The Universe". What can I see? I can see the Sun that is shinning. What do I think? I think that the Earth is moving around the Sun, that this planet allows vital development and the importance of gravity. What does it make me wonder? The pollution and how long the earth will survive. This thinking routine is a useful technique which can be implemented in primary as it helps students to think and reflect about real life. It was a fantastic idea to go to the playground as it was motivating and inspiring. Then, the teacher asks us to answer the following questions: Where are we? What is the Earth planet? How does the Earth look like? How can we know something about the Universe? We answer these questions

Last Wednesday I could not attend class because I was sick. However, I was interested in the aspects that were worked on the class. The main objective of the class was to debate about the pollution problems and to classificate which of them was  the most important and the least one. A mong them we highlighted the elimination of plastic as an objective to reduce pollution as well as the use of public transport and reduction of water consumption. On the other hand, the teacher asks us to look for news on the topics discussed. To conclude, this picture helps us to know about what we can do to reduce pollution. Small actions will become great actions.