Into Our Skies: Space in Schools

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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.