Teachers' Resources

Nature and biodiversity is something that Bord na Móna is investing in as part of our day to day work. This is why Bord na Móna created Eco Rangers- Guardians of the Land an initiative for schools that gets children outdoors and connecting with nature and learning about the importance of protecting it. See more at https://www.ecorangers.ie/.

What do Water Explorers achieve? Water Explorer supports 8 -14 year olds on a student-led mission to rescue our waterful world. Water Explorers are supported to:

• Complete water-based challenges on key water issues
• Collaborate with other students across the world
• Hold community water festivals and win points and prizes
• Develop a range of transferable knowledge and skills

What impact will Water Explorer have? By the end of the two-year programme (Sep 2016), the programme will have resulted in the following (among other) benefits:

• 1,400 Water Explorer teams
• 9,000 Water Explorers trained
• 90,000 students with increased water awareness
• 475,000 students and community members engaged
• 240,000 m3 water saved = 95 Olympic swimming pools

Visit the website of the National Biodiversity Data Centre for more information and guidelines on what schools can do to help pollinators http://www.biodiversityireland...

A school garden is a great addition to your school. Children learn and have fun in a natural ever-changing environment where they get to appreciate nature, nutrition, and even how maths, reading, geography and history can be fun and how they fit into and influence our day to day lives. They get to learn in a new and exciting way.

Visit http://www.schoolearthed.ie/li... for a range of ideas, resources and links relating to the school garden.

SEED's aims are to establish living classrooms in every school to demonstrate that school gardens have unlimited cross curricular potential, particularly tying in with SESE, SPHE, Art, Languages, History and Maths.

The actions that this website tracks align with a series of pollinator friendly guidelines. For example, the guideline document for Gardens suggests 20 possible actions suitable for any type of garden. You can download the Garden Guideline from the Pollinator Plan’s website:

www.biodiversityireland.ie/pol...

Once you've identified the changes you'd like to make to your school garden register your garden on the mapping system. Instructions on registering and using the mapping system can be downloaded here http://www.biodiversityireland...

For ease of identification, the species are divided into colour categories and within each category the species are grouped by, for example, the number of petals in the flower or whether the species carries its flowers in a cluster or a spike. In easily understood terminology, focus is put on the main identifying features of each plant, by colour, size, shape of flower, leaf, habitat, flowering season, and where in Ireland it might be found.

This is a must for enthusiasts of all ages and experience and a complementary companion to the author’s Wildflowers of Ireland – A Personal Record.

Things To do
1.    Download the Where We Live worksheet below and ask the children to draw a map of their trip to school, showing the major landmarks on their way.
2.    Bring the children to the local park and point out the little hills and mounds that make up that landscape and ask them to draw a picture of the park.

Fish are vertebrates. That means they have a backbone. But unlike mammals, fish don’t have lungs. They breathe by taking oxygen from the water in through their mouths, where it passes over the gills. The gills then absorb oxygen from the water and send the oxygen throughout the body. Some fish are carnivores. They eat other fish and small animals and insects. Other fish are omnivores, eating both plants and animals.

Things To do
1.    Tell the time?
You will need:

• A bowl, a straight stick, some small pebbles, rocks, watch or clock

Directions:

• Find a sunny spot in the grass and put the stick in the ground (make sure it is straight).
• Throughout the day, place a rock for each hour indicating where the shadow falls at that time.
• Now your sundial is ready to use. When you want to tell the time, just look for the shadow

2.    Download and printout the Sundial Worksheet below on card and make a sun dial.
You will need:

• Cardboard, scissors and sellotape.

Directions:

• Cut out the dial plate and the gnomon.
• Cut a slit in the dial plate along the dotted line.
• Score alone the dotted lies on the gnomon. Fold along these lines. Slide the folded gnomon into the slit in the dial plate and stick the gnomon flaps to the bottom of the dial plate with sellotape.
• Take the sundial to a sunny place and place it in a north-south direction.
• The gnomon should cast a shadow and you will be able to tell the time (Don’t forget to calculate in daylight savings time where appropriate).

The river Nore (An Fheoir) rises in the Devil’s Bit Mountain in Co. Tipperary. It then flows through County Laois and enters County Kilkenny at the townland of Ballynaslee. It flows through Co. Kilkenny, before flowing into the River Barrow a few kilometres north of New Ross. 

It is known as one of the Three Sisters Rivers (Barrow, Nore, Suir). The River Nore is 140km in length and drains an area of approximately 861 hectares. It has a very steep gradient, but this is lessened by the many weirs built along its length.

This project is kindly supported by the Kilkenny Education Centre and the Heritage Council.

Skills and concepts development
Children should be able to:
1.    Time and Chronology:

• Describe events as before/after/ later/earlier
• Use a simple timeline

2.    Change and continuity:

• Identify features that have remained the same, for example the houses and the bridges near the river
• Identify how the River Nore has changed

3.    Cause and effect:

• Examine the reasons for the flood and the effect it had on Kilkenny City

4.    Using evidence:

• Photographs of the river today
• Photographs of the flood
• Edited version of articles in the Kilkenny People

5.    Synthesis and Communication:

• Communicate an awareness of the story of the flood and stories associated with it, in a variety of different ways such as drama and art.

5.    Empathy:

• Imagine and discuss what it was like to be rescued in a boat on the evening of the flood.
• Imagine and discuss what it was like to have your home destroyed by floodwater.

Methodologies

• Among the methods which may be used are:
• A story lesson based on the accounts from the Kilkenny People
• Examining a photograph taken of the flood
• Listening to personal memories of the flood (oral evidence)
• Integration with other subjects: the river (Geography)

Assessment

• Teacher observation
• Outcomes of pupil-pupil and teacher-pupil discussion
• Teacher-designed tasks
• Work cards designed to help children examine the evidence

Once the cross is woven, it is blessed with holy water by a priest. It is then hung on the front doors of homes and left in place all year, to be burned and replaced with a newly-woven cross on the next St Brigid’s Day.

How to make a St. Brigid’s Cross
You will need:

• bowl
• 28 long reads or straws (if not available why not try pipe cleaners).

Instructions:

• Position two straws to make a plus sign, putting the horizontal straw on the top. Fold the upper section of the vertical straw on top of its other half. Rotate the weave counter-clockwise 90 degrees. Repeat to fold the now-vertical straw.
• Rotate 90 degrees counter-clockwise. Add another straw by placing it to the right of the folded vertical straw and beneath the folded horizontal straw. Fold it and rotate it again.
• Keep repeating the process without letting the straws bunch up on top of each other. Rest the straws side by side.
• Tie each arm 4 inches from the centre of the St. Brigid’s cross after all the straws have been added. Trim the ends of the straw.