We were lucky enough to have Simon from Dundee Science centre come into our workshop and talk to us about Space. Simon’s passion and enthusiasm for our solar system and beyond was extremely motivational and has sparked an interest for me to research about how space can be taught in our schools.
Space is something which I have never really studied and this lecture inspired me to look into the subject in more depth for my own professional development. I believe that studying space in the primary curriculum is a fantastic opportunity to plan for cross curricular lessons. Space can be used in art and design, drama, history and, most importantly, maths!
Space is something which has been studied for thousands of years and will be for thousands more due to its sheer size. It is important to consider Ma’s concept of “multiple perspectives” when studying the solar systems and its relationship with maths. When Ma refers to multiple perspectives she wants people to understand that there are different routes to an answer. This links greatly into the teaching and understanding of space due to such a huge variety of people visiting the moon etc and finding out life changing facts and reaching their answers in different ways.
There is a huge link between maths and space and there is a wide variety of things that pupils can be taught to link them together. When people associate space with mathematics I assume that they feel the same way as I do. Confused. I always just think that maths in this context is about extremely confusing equations and really long numbers.
This is not necessarily the case. When I teach space in the classroom I will remind myself that I am not an astronaut and neither are my pupils (yet!) Pupils in the upper stages can be taught about speed, distance and time and this could be related to astronauts going out of the earth and to the moon/space. Younger years could possibly be taught about the names of the planets and ways to remember them.
The NASA website has a lot of good lesson plans which are extremely helpful and child friendly which can be found here: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/math-activities/en/
Therefore, there are huge links between mathematics and space and this is something which can be made enjoyable in the primary classroom.
