IML help Louisville Science Center Use Social networking website to reach more students
Posted by Steve Steurer on May 12, 2009
IML developed a social networking website that combines Youtube and a science fair to reach students all around Kentucky. The following story is from the courier-journal. It tells how the science center is using new media developed by Interactive Media Lab.
In a song she wrote last week, Aria Watkins sings about installing a water-efficient shower head and other ways to conserve water.
“Don’t take a shower for an hour,” sang Aria, 14, an eighth-grader at Kammerer Middle School. “Don’t leave water rushing while you’re brushing.”
Her song is among dozens of submissions to the AT&T Virtual Science Challenge, which the Louisville Science Center is holding for the second time this year. The contest is designed to get fifth-through 10th-graders across the state involved in science by creating videos that focus on energy, water and exercise.
“It’s like science fair meets YouTube,” said Danielle Waller, communications manager for the Louisville Science Center.
Kammerer science teacher Dustin Johnstone got most of his eighth-grade students involved in the challenge after learning about it during a field trip to the science center.
He let his students vote on whether to take part in the project and only 12 of 140 opted out. Students could do individual projects or work in groups to develop their science challenge.
With only about two weeks for students to do their projects, “they had to be committed to it,” he said.
One group that completed its video early shared it with the class last week. It focused on muscles and exercise. Students laughed as video of four boys “sweating to the oldies” played on a large-screen projector.
Meanwhile, Grant Teague, 13, compiled a list of healthy foods along with the calorie counts for snacks such as popsicles and fruit smoothies and fast-food items from McDonald’s.
“We’re going to do a Food Network show about it,” he said.
Waller said creativity is a big factor in the contest, and she enjoyed seeing what the students came up with.
“This is not like the Intel Science Fair,” the world’s largest pre-college science competition. “We want them to use video and technology and make it fun,” she said.
Molly Carpenter, life-science coordinator at the Louisville Science Center, visited Johnstone’s class to see how the projects were progressing. She said the group is the first entire grade to participate, and she hopes other schools will follow its lead.
“Teachers can use this as part of their curriculum,” Carpenter said. “It has a lot of different components. We tie it in with the national standards. … This lets the kids apply science to their everyday life in a way that they enjoy.”
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