Minute Space

Objective:

Explaining a topic related to space in one minute

 

NGSS Standards:

MS-ESS1-1. Develop and use a model of the Earth-sun-moon system to describe the cyclic patterns of lunar phases, eclipses of the sun and moon, and seasons.

MS-ESS1-2. Develop and use a model to describe the role of gravity in the motions within galaxies and the solar system.

MS-ESS1-3. Analyze and interpret data to determine scale properties of objects in the solar system.

 

Overview of Lesson:

As we studied space and astronomy, students had a lot of random questions about black holes and stars and other topics that were beyond the scope of the standards.  To give the students an opportunity to explore one of these avenues further, I created this assignment as an opportunity for them to practice their written and visual expression on a topic of interest to them.  The assignment has multiple parts designed to help keep them on track to creating the final video.  I decided that this project would be best if the students each had unique topics so the first task was going through the process of choosing topics with a Google Form and having students find new topics if the ones they wanted were taken.  Once the topics were chosen, the next process was the curation of information and images for their final project.  They needed to write a script that would take them one minute to read and then show accompanying visuals while reading their scripts.  The curation involved determining which pieces of information were most important to share in the one minute video as well as which images would correlate with the text and enhance the meaning of their words.  Some students chose to draw their visuals while others collected them from online sources

Once the curation process was complete, students collected their visuals into a presentation and practiced reading their script with the corresponding visuals.  SnagIt is a great extension for screen capture, with the one downside that the process of you starting and stopping your presentation is included in the captured video.  Many students used WeVideo to edit out the start and end parts of their video.  Once the video had been created, students created a Google Form quiz for viewers of their video to complete to check for understanding.  Finally, as part of our outreach, students made flyers with QR codes that advertised their videos and displayed them in the MPR for the public to view and access.

 

Areas that students needed help on:

For the most part the students were pretty self-sufficient on the curation aspect of this assignment.  I policed for plagiarism and copyright infringement as much as possible but still some students used images that were not clear commons.  The hardest part of this assignment was the technical part of creating the videos.  Students had to find a quiet place on campus to record their voice, which wasn’t always easy to do.  They also often needed help from other students to record the videos or to export the videos correctly.  All of this was indeed a good learning process but there were times that the tech got in the way of the demonstration of content.

 

Assessment/Scoring:

Student projects were evaluated on their ability to follow the directions, including completion of all parts of the assignment.  Final projects were scored based on scientific content (including connection to sizes and gravity) and clarity of ideas.

 

Student samples:

The Oort Cloud:  Video https://goo.gl/fu1JqY Surveys http://goo.gl/UOEBQn http://goo.gl/ubGdNl

Neutron Stars: Video https://goo.gl/Swg408 Survey http://goo.gl/o8VyZ9

Solar Eclipses: Video https://goo.gl/or3kM8 Survey: http://goo.gl/s0DnmX

 

Conclusions/Reflections for the Future:

The process of curation and creation is a rather important skill for students to practice regularly.  I don’t think they realize or appreciate how much I curate information for them on a daily basis.  This is a good project for them to both curate and create which could be applied to topics other than space.  I really like holding them to the 1 minute restriction because that lowers the frequency of rambling videos.  I’ve done this project for the past two years.  The first year I was still teaching in a traditional way and ended up devoting at least two weeks of class time to working on this assignment.  The projects linked above are from this original class’ work.  I repeated the assignment this year in my blended learning arrangement and the outcome was a bit different.  I took a day to assign the topics and to generate interest in the project.  However, as the students were checking the upcoming assignments and budgeting their time, this one loomed as a massive task with many parts and restrictions.  The students kept choosing to budget their time getting the smaller assignments done rather than start in on this big one.  I also had assigned the Space Engineering assignment, which also was a large assignment but was similar to ones we had done before and apparently was more approachable than Minute Space.   In the end I had about 10 students out of 70 complete the Minute Space assignment and I made it optional for the rest of the students.  The 10 projects were mediocre and had technical errors that I would have liked to have reviewed with the students and fixed.

I think this project has some very valuable lessons about collecting information and presenting it to an audience.  It was unfortunate but educational that the structure and format of this assignment ended up making it less appealing to students in a student-centered environment.  I think that next year I will need to choose whether to offer this assignment or the engineering assignment as having both of them proved to be too much work.  I also may need to break up the assignment into separate and smaller pieces so that the work is more approachable for students who are daunted by a behemoth of a project (which it’s really not once you get going).

 

Digital Resources:

Minute Space Instructions

LEC Curation and Creation Lesson Plan for Minute Space