Space Speaker
Since October 2020, I have been volunteering as a Speaker with Blackrock Castle Observatory and ESERO for the ESERO Space Goes to School Programme. I am extremely grateful to have been repeatedly asked to speak to both primary and secondary schools for Space Week, Science Week and Tech Week during 2020, 2021 and 2022.
I have also volunteered with Engineers Ireland as part of the STEPS Young Engineers Award in 2021 where I remotely visited the classroom and the students were able to present their projects for the competition and receive some feedback from an Engineer, aka me.
I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to talk about Space and to share my journey so far with the students. I thoroughly enjoy speaking with the students about all things space and I am extremely thankful for the amazing feedback I have received on my talks!
Séamus
Principal
“My goodness!
We really enjoyed your talk. Thank you so much.
I’ve just come in from yard duty and the children are buzzing with thoughts about Space and also, interestingly enough, about designing things I think they’ve just realised that everything around them has been designed by someone. Some of the older ones were talking about the designs of the building you were working on.
Your presentation was perfectly pitched. All the pupils from the 3rd to the 6th could follow what you were saying and as the teacher I thought your phrase ‘it’s very confusing’ was a nice way of saying that something was beyond them at this stage. And a few of the children have commented on the fact that when you were designing the satellite you said ‘I didn’t really know what I was doing’ which for them is great because when they’re stuck on a Maths question or an Irish phrase it’s no harm for them to realise that sometimes adults find things hard as well.
The pictures were great and really kept their focus. And whether you realise it or not showing them the photo of you at Kennedy Space Station made an instant connection because in the photo you were the same age as they are now. It also, hopefully, showed them that the ‘dreams’ they have at this stage are achievable if they really work.”
Anonymous
Class Teacher
“We really enjoyed speaking with Aoife. Her presentation was so informative and pitched at the children’s level. It was lovely to get the opportunity to ask questions afterwards. Her PowerPoint presentation was excellent with all her photographs and information from her story. The children really enjoyed it. 10/10. Thanks to Aoife for giving up her time to speak to us.”
Anonymous
Principal
“It’s so funny that even now your chat is still in their minds. The story in the English reader for 5th and 6th in January was about an astronaut and her first space walk and of course it finished with ‘Imagine you are on a space walk’ and one of the girls asked if she could imagine she was in the control centre. So they realise that there’s more to space than astronauts.”