Scientists tell us that if we look at Europe from outer space we will see a green wave moving up across it in springtime.
This is caused by the opening of the buds on the trees. It begins in the south of Europe in February and it moves up across Europe as the temperature rises. It moves at about the same speed as we might walk – four to six kilometres per hour. The Greenwave.ie project (www.greenwave.ie) has tracked the arrival of spring in Ireland since 2007 and now Greenwave is going European.
The Greenwave Europe project is a mass science experiment for selected primary schools around Europe, modelled on the Irish original. Students and teachers will be able to register on the Greenwave Europe website (www.greenwave-europe.eu), enabling them to record sightings of and upload photographs of the various common species throughout Europe that show spring has arrived.
Weather
Schools will also have the option of measuring the temperature daily, as well as making a rain gauge and an anemometer and uploading this weather information onto the website also. The results are then mapped and analysed and we can see how spring arrives across Europe.
The Greenwave project is a practical way to support the teaching of the Plants and Animals Strand Unit in the primary science curriculum. Students can advance their computer skills and develop real science skills such as:
- Observing
- Classifying
- Recognising patterns
- Estimating and measuring
- Recording and communicating
The European Greenwave project will involve a maximum of 25 schools per country this year. All schools will have to enter a minimum of two common species as indicators of spring arriving in their countries. By taking part in the Greenwave Europe project, they will be doing real science, by studying and recording when plants and animals react to warming and lengthening days in spring and taking part in this mass experiment.
Irish teachers are invited to log on from February and to submit sightings of spring in Ireland to be involved in this pan-European project.
