This is to serve notice that I am changing the Aims and Objectives of my Leaving Cert Physics subject plan. The existing plan was cobbled together at short notice by copying and pasting from other schools courtesy of some nifty google searching. But it’s pretty bland and therefore not really fit for purpose. So what […]
If it’s possible to dedicate blogposts to individuals then I choose to dedicate this to my aunt; Sr Cathy. Like many religious folk I know, her passion for Science may well surpass her passion for her religion. Or maybe she’s just passionate about everything. Either way, I’m looking forward to meeting up with her over […]
Students today are often immersed in an environment where what they learn is subjects that have truth and beauty embedded in them but the way they’re taught is compartmentalised and it’s drawn down to the point where the truth and beauty are not always evident. It’s almost like that old recipe for chicken soup where […]
This is an image, courtesy of Wordle.net, of the current Leaving Certificate Physics syllabus. Wordle is a program that gives the most common words the largest font size: This is a similar image of the proposed new syllabus. Notice the new focus on the words ‘learners’ and ‘learning’. Imagine if a syllabus had as its […]
Available for about €20 from amazon.co.uk I’m thinking of getting about 8 to act as a class set, and a few more for presents to nephews and nieces. The ‘Presssure and Sound’ demo can be done with mobile phones as I suggest – the sound level does drop noticealbly in the classroom, but not enough […]
George Monbiot, who writes for The Guardian, finished a recent piece on communication in science with the following: We are deprived by our stupid schooling system of most of the wonders of the world, of the skills and knowledge required to navigate it, above all of the ability to understand each other. Our narrow, antiquated […]
Yes, yes, yes, yes! Just read this online article from Simon Jenkins in the Guardian I devour popular science, finding its history and its wonder a constant delight. . . . It is a mystery how so many science teachers can be so bad at their jobs that most children of my acquaintance cannot wait […]
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; we need to put the wonder back in to science education. Currently the science syllabus in school couldn’t be more devoid of wonder if you went through it with a microscope and deliberately sucked out all the good bits. To put the wonder back in we […]
It’s no substitute for the real thing (YouTube) but howstuffworks.com is still a tremendous resource. The video section has taken hundreds of science videos and chopped them up into bitesize chunks, which is ideal for today’s student and their lack of attention-span. I have included links to many of them in the website under the […]
A colleague reminded me recently that when you think about it, there are really only two concepts that fascinate young kids; Space and Dinosaurs. Okay, so this is a gross generalisation, but with work with me here. Somebody in England has cottoned on to the first part of this. The Society for Popular Astronomy (SPA), […]
