By Maryann MolishusMaryann Molishus is a STAR member of the Discovery Educator Network.

My second graders are hooked on filmmaking.  If that is all we did this year, I think they would be happy (I don’t know about their parents though.)  It all started in the fall when I decided to ask the children, “What do you want to do?”  They came up with some wonderful ideas.  To make a long story short, one of the ideas turned into a book review television show written and hosted by the student who had the idea.  Along the way, many other students got involved as the class learned about the many jobs it takes to create a TV show, commercial, movie, etc.  We even had our own security guard–a much prized job!! Our finished show even made it to our school district’s cable channel. Our class was thrilled beyond words!

There were so many film projects the children wanted to complete, but it was quite challenging to get to them all.  After all, they are second graders and still need a good deal of support.  When the 3M/Discovery Young Scientist Challenge appeared, I decided to check it out.  We watched a webinar (some of it–the video was blocked in our district) and we got some ideas about how we could do our own similar challenge with a science topic about which the second graders had become experts this year–insects.  We brainstormed five broad questions that could be addressed related to insects (such as “How do you identify an insect?” and “How do insect protect themselves?”).  I searched through some other contest sites and created a rubric that suited our needs.  We entitled our project The 2008 Second Grade Insect Film Festival.  This would be our “pilot year” to test whether this could work.  We had until June 3 to complete the filming, since that is when our insect presentations needed to be ready for parents, etc.  The children were divided into six groups of 3 or 4 students.  They chose their topics, researched the material, wrote their scripts, directed the project, filmed it, and acted in it.  Because of time issues, I had to do some of the editing, but we made it.  Six films (in what I would call draft-ish versions) were ready by June 3. I wish I would have filmed the entire process because it was amazing to see what the children could do (and quite funny at times).  We even spent a day learning about appropriate use of video clips and searching and downloading videos from Discovery in case they wanted to/needed to use them (thank you!!).  Months before, when the children were learning about filmmaking (thanks also to AFI), we were discussing the green screen effect.  We had all kinds of ideas about using it this year but just never got to it.  Well, I asked one of the groups if they would like to try it since they found a video clip that could be used in their background.  I set up some green bulletin board paper.  To my amazement, the first words out of one of the group member’s mouth was that she couldn’t be in it because she was wearing a green shirt!  So the really do listen!!!  Luckily, our trusty Discovery lab coat, with the sleeves rolled WAY UP, came to the rescue.  Too cute! 

In the end, we didn’t score the films with our rubric because the children really didn’t have the time to fix them up.  But the children and parents were very impressed with their projects.  It was great to see each group complimenting one another–knowing how difficult it was to complete the job.  They took their research about individual insects and expanded it to a broad topic, which was a difficult thing for them to do at this age.  And, they had to work together to get the job done.  Each group had a director who was in charge–and they really took that job seriously.    

I am hoping to start off the next school year prepared to share what this group and I have learned about filmmaking.  It definitely takes practice, but it is well worth the effort.  I even noticed a change in their writing on their end-of-year writing assessment.  At first, I couldn’t figure out why some students were writing a certain way, and then I realized that it was the film process that was affecting their style.  Very interesting!

Thanks to Discovery for all your help over the years!  I does make a difference. Joe Brennan, keep posting and sharing.  You make it way easier!!