This interdisciplinary curriculum unit takes advantage of today’s youthful fascination with technology in order to motivate active learning in English, environmental science, and media literacy. Working individually or collaborating in teams, students create short documentaries or public service announcements that are designed to inform, entertain, or advocate on issues illustrated by the footage provided. How-to videos, worksheets, and other activities take students step-by step through the process of researching their topic, critically analyzing issues, and creating logical and persuasive arguments and compelling conclusions. Upon completion of their documentaries, students learn leadership and public speaking skills by presenting their projects to classmates or to the general public. Reproducible worksheets, activities, PowerPoint presentations, how-to videos, assessment rubrics, and other teacher support materials are provided.
This DVD contains:
1) General environmental footage. This footage is useful to "set the scene", find connecting or opening/closing shots, and address broader issues.
2) Footage specific to this module. This footage will constitute the body of your student documentaries – issues, evidence, consequences, pros and cons, assumptions, and/or causes.
3) A Teaching Unit supporting national standards. Materials are designed to be used in a "cafeteria" manner - projects can be completed in as little as 5-10 classroom periods or over the course of several months.
The teaching unit is presented to you in two formats. You can either view it as a self-contained website (on the disc) that allows you to click through all the links, or you can view it as a group of documents inside labeled folders. Both formats contain the same information, though the website is easier to navigate and the folders are easier to access if you know what you are looking for.
FOLDERS FORMAT WEBSITE FORMAT
GETTING STARTED: Pop the DVD into your computer's CD/DVD drive. Drag the contents of the DVD onto your desktop and wait while it copies. After this you can put aside the DVD and access all of the materials directly from your desktop. Your computer will work much faster if it is reading off of its internal drive, rather than from the DVD.
Have fun!
Copyright Notice: Licensee is granted a one-year, single-classroom, educational rights to all materials included in this package for the period of one year.. Resale or redistribution not permitted.
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