Well the class has been in data collection mode. I am there for support, but the student’s are busy finishing collecting videos and digitizing. We learned about data analysis and presentation these past weeks.
This week I had the students create and submit a movie trailer for their research. I wanted to give the students a creative assignment, highlight their videos, and advertise their research. Since I am a big fan of movies (and love when new trailers come out), I thought I would try this as an assignment. I created a rubric to ensure that the student’s were aware their research needed to be the focus, but that it should be creative and fun. They needed to clearly state their hypothesis, show some methods, and have fun with it. Every group submitted theirs and on the Monday before Thanksgiving, I made some popcorn and we all previewed them. I wasn’t aware that iMovie actually had movie trailer templates, so several groups used those, which helped with 
editing, creativity, and creative commons music (which we discussed). They were a bit skeptical of the assignment, not sure of what I was looking for, and asked if I had ever done one, which I had not. But, since we had an unexpected snow day the Thursday before, I decided to try my hand at it and created one for them. This was a really fun assignment, every group did a great job at showcasing their research and creativity. As a bonus, I will be sharing their videos with the faculty and staff here as advertisements for each group’s poster coming up at our Dept.’s annual fall poster day. The group that gets the most faculty to visit (they’ll have sign in sheets) based on their trailers will get some bonus points. I’ve also considered giving a bonus to the group that has the most views on social media as they are posted on youtube and twitter. Below are the trailers, get some popcorn and enjoy!
First up, my trailer for the assignment. I’m not a horror movie fan, but felt it was appropriate:
Second, team water strider takes a sci-fi suspense approach, can these scientists save mankind from the invading water striders?
Next, team stink bug examines the “super” flight abilities of invasive marmorated stink bugs.
Team crayfish introduced the world to the crayfish olympics.
And last, but certainly not least, team jump draws inspiration from the Hunger Games to examine the Jumping Games: