News Earth and Space Event for Science Teachers of the New Junior Science Curriculum

The Irish Science Teachers’ Association, in collaboration with Lennox Laboratory Supplies recently (Wednesday 25th October 2017) supported an ‘Earth and Space' event in the School of Education, NUI Galway.

Dr Veronica McCauley (VMcC_ScienceEd) Lecturer in Science Education, organised the event with the Galway ISTA branch, and the response from teachers was immense.  Over 80 teachers secured a place within days of the event being promoted.

Rory Geoghegan, Lecturer in Physics Education and Editor of Science Journal presented the workshop.  The workshop aimed to give teachers further insight into the new Earth and Space strand from the New Junior Science Specification.  Teachers were brought through a series of curious questions that targeted astronomical events on a local, global and ‘beyond' scale.

The workshop covered topics of space, celestial bodies, planetary systems, gravity, space exploration, the scale of the solar system, galaxies, the Big Bang, etc.  A powerpoint resource suite was shared with all teachers.  This resource collates for teachers, a suite of sound bites, explanatory statements, links to video/audio files, simulations, relevant websites for the astronomy strand.  Although the content in part is more advanced than Junior Science, it’s aim is to present teachers with a contextual experience, allowing them to teach from a broader knowledge point, and of course have the multiplicity of resources to hand in designing their own class materials.