Into Our Skies: Space in Schools

“进入我们的天空：学校的空间”的目的是利用与KS2高中国家课程（五年级和六年级）有关的创造性，想象性和互动式教育视频，吸引年轻观众对科学的好奇心和兴奋。中央兰开夏大学正在进行的一项研究的初步结果表明，由于新冠肺炎导致学校关闭，一些学校提供的科学课程少于正常教学周。一些教师还报告说，他们在将课程转换为在线学习方面遇到了困难，特别是在涉及实际工作时。显然有必要提供一种新的在线的、可访问的科学学习，而这个项目的目的是生产这样的内容，并使其无论学习环境如何都可以获得。与传统的科学学习不同，我们的目标是用舞蹈让孩子们接触科学。这个项目最初是计划面对面交付的，我们有一定数量的大学资助来试验它。我们对疫情做出了迅速反应，并利用这笔资金制作了一个简短的试点视频（可在这里查看：https://youtu.be/aR0vqRHIL8U），正在少数当地学校进行测试。为了保持学校的社交距离，2020/21学年越来越有可能出现课堂和家庭学习的混合。在此，我们建议扩展我们的计划，为教师和家长制作一个有用的在线资源。我们将制作三部预先录好的互动教育短片，引导幼儿认识天文学和太空相关的概念，激发他们对科学的兴趣和求知欲。主题将包括1)月球，2)地球和太阳，3)太阳系，并将纳入KS2课程，如(i)重力，（ii）轨道，（iii）光和反射，（iv）材料的性质和变化以及(v)白天和黑夜。这些互动教育视频将附带额外的资源，包括如何促进舞蹈课的“最佳提示”和“科学部分”的补充信息。旨在帮助家长和老师传授与他们的背景或科学知识水平无关的内容。为了促进持续的参与和更深入的学习，我们将包括课程计划和工作表的实践环节，可以在家里或在学校进行。没有成本因素，所以所有的材料都可以真正地为每个人所用。在与老师交谈后，很明显，学生们在学校里错过了相当多的时间，因此有了覆盖课程的压力。使用跨学科的方法，我们可以将科学学习嵌入到其他学科中。例如，视频中使用的描述性词汇可以发展新的词汇，学生可以提高他们的写作理解能力，例如写一个关于他们的月球之旅的故事，或者研究地球上陨石坑的地理位置，并将它们与月球进行比较。他们可以使用这些视频的原声，在体育课上创作新的舞蹈，或者用它作为自己作曲的灵感。我们的目标是制作互动教育视频和相关资源，这些视频和资源可以在2020/21学年作为课堂和家庭学习的一部分使用，以及（ii）从长远来看，作为在线和面对面学习的重要主体的开始。所有这些资源都将通过中央兰开夏大学天文学网站免费提供，并且在本项目结束后仍可访问；大学已经有适当的资源来管理网页。观看视频不需要任何专业设备，只需在笔记本电脑、平板电脑或有wi - fi功能的电视上播放即可。如果需要，我们也可以直接下载该会话。

The aim of "Into Our Skies: Space in Schools" is to use creative, imaginative and interactive educational videos relating to the upper KS2 national curriculum (year 5 and 6) to engage young audiences with the curiosity and excitement of science.Preliminary findings from an ongoing study at UCLan suggest that, as a result of school closures due to Covid-19, some schools are sending out less science than they would provide in the normal school week. Some teachers are also reporting that they are having difficulty in translating the curriculum to online learning, particularly when it comes to practical work. There is clearly a need for a new provision of online, accessible science learning and the aim of this project is to produce such content and make it available irrespective of the learning environment. Moving away from traditional science-learning we aim to use dance to engage young children with science. This project was originally planned for face-to-face delivery and we had a targeted amount of University funding to trial it. We have responded quickly to the pandemic and have used the funding to create a short pilot video (available here: https://youtu.be/aR0vqRHIL8U) which is being tested by a handful of local schools. To maintain social distancing in schools, it is increasingly likely that the academic year 2020/21 will see a mixture of both in-class and home learning. Here we propose to expand our project by producing a useful online resource for both teachers and parents. We will produce three pre-recorded interactive educational videos which will guide young children through astronomy and space-related concepts, sparking an interest in science and a thirst for knowledge. Topics will include 1) The Moon, 2) Earth and the Sun and 3) The Solar System and will incorporate KS2 curricula such as (i) gravity, (ii) orbits, (iii) light and reflection and (iv) properties and changes of materials and (v) day and night. The interactive educational videos will be accompanied by additional resources, including "top tips" on how to facilitate a dance class and supplementary information on "the science bit". designed to help parents and teachers alike deliver the content, irrelevant of their background or level of science knowledge. To promote sustained engagement and deeper learning we will include lesson plans and worksheets for practical sessions which can be carried out at home or in school. There will be no cost element, so all material can truly be accessible to everyone. After speaking to teachers, it is clear that students have missed out on considerable time in school and so there is pressure to cover the curriculum. Using a cross-curricular approach we can embed science learning within other subjects. For example, the descriptive words used in the videos can develop new vocabulary, students can improve their writing comprehension for example by writing a story about their journey to the Moon or investigate the geography of craters on Earth and compare them with the Moon. They can use the soundtrack to the videos, which will also be made available, to create new dances in their PE lessons, or use it as inspiration for their own musical composition. Our aim is to produce interactive educational videos and accompanying resources that can be used (i) over the 2020/21 academic year as part of both in-class and home learning, as well as (ii) in the longer term as the start of a significant body of work both online and face-to-face. All these resources will be made freely available via the UCLan Astronomy web pages and will remain accessible beyond this project; the University already has resources in place to manage the web page. No specialist equipment is required to view the videos and they can simply be streamed on a laptop, tablet or Wi-Fi-enabled TV. We can also make the session available as a direct download if required.