Into Our Skies: Space in Schools

《进入我们的天空：学校里的空间》的目的是使用与KS2高年级(5年级和6年级)国家课程相关的创造性、想象力和互动性的教育视频来吸引年轻观众对科学的好奇和兴奋。伦敦大学洛杉矶分校正在进行的一项研究的初步发现表明，由于新冠肺炎导致学校停课，一些学校发送的科学课程比正常学校周提供的少。一些教师还报告说，他们在将课程转化为在线学习方面遇到了困难，特别是在实际工作中。显然有必要提供一种新的在线、无障碍的科学学习，该项目的目的是制作这种内容，并使其在任何学习环境下都可获得。离开传统的科学学习，我们的目标是用舞蹈让年幼的孩子接触科学。这个项目最初计划面对面的交付，我们有一个目标金额的大学资金来试验它。我们对疫情做出了快速反应，并利用这笔资金制作了一段简短的试点视频(可在此处获得：https://youtu.be/aR0vqRHIL8U))，该视频正在由当地几所学校进行测试。为了在学校中保持社会距离，2020/21学年越来越有可能出现课堂学习和家庭学习的混合。在这里，我们建议通过为教师和家长制作一个有用的在线资源来扩大我们的项目。我们将制作三个预先录制的互动教育视频，引导幼儿了解天文学和与空间有关的概念，激发他们对科学的兴趣和对知识的渴望。课程将包括1)月球，2)地球和太阳，3)太阳系，并将包括KS2课程，如(I)重力，(Ii)轨道，(Iii)光和反射，(Iv)物质的性质和变化和(V)白天和黑夜。互动教育视频将伴随着额外的资源，包括如何促进舞蹈课的“顶级提示”和关于“科学比特”的补充信息。旨在帮助家长和教师提供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，我们将包括可以在家里或学校进行的实践课程的教案和工作表。不会有成本因素，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，学生们错过了相当长的在校时间，因此有覆盖课程的压力。使用跨课程方法，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，学生可以提高写作理解力，例如通过写一篇关于他们登月之旅的故事，或者调查地球上陨石坑的地理并将其与月球进行比较。他们可以使用视频的配乐，在体育课上创作新的舞蹈，或者将其作为自己音乐创作的灵感。我们的目标是制作互动教育视频和配套资源，这些资源可以(I)在2020/21学年作为课堂和家庭学习的一部分，以及(Ii)从长远来看，作为大量在线和面对面工作的开始。所有这些资源将通过UCLan天文学网页免费提供，并将在该项目之后继续提供；该大学已经有资源来管理该网页。观看视频不需要专业设备，只需在笔记本电脑、平板电脑或支持Wi-Fi的电视上进行流媒体播放即可。如果需要，我们还可以将会议作为直接下载。

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.