Minute Space – Take 2

The overview of this lesson and the information about my previous experiences with this assignment are available here:  http://knechtstem.com/2015/12/14/minute-space/

So this year I decided to take my advice from last year and revamp this assignment.  After structuring it to be very overwhelming last year, I stripped down the requirements and gave students more freedom in their choice of how to create their project as long as it met the basic requirements.  While the project was based on the hand drawn videos of Minute Earth, I previously opted to make this a screencast instead.  I had been using and enjoying the Techsmith Snagit extension for Chrome but unfortunately it is no longer available.  The best current alternative is Screencastify but there is a paywall for doing anything beyond basic capturing and saving.  I also have the cart of iPads in my room so many students actually opted to record and edit with the iPad rather than their computer.

My concern previously was about the students giving proper attribution for their source images and their information.  When the students drew their own pictures, this aspect of the assignment was no longer necessary.  On the whole, I was pleased with the quality of the final projects and the depth of the information included in the videos.  My grading rubric this time was looking specifically for their discussion of gravity and scale, two concepts which I made sure to reinforce in previous assignments.

Now that the technical bugs have been worked out, I am happier with this assignment and think I will continue some sort of short video assignment in the future.

Student Samples

Hoag Galaxies:  https://goo.gl/SQoF2R

Other livable planets:  https://goo.gl/zqAucd

Pluto:  https://goo.gl/4iIifX

Comets:  https://goo.gl/qLcJjM