This semester I took a multimedia journalism class, and decided that it would be great to get my blogging buddies from Mrs. Podolak’s first grade class involved in my work. So, I paid a visit to their classroom to document just what goes on during a science experiment, and what makes science in the classroom so important, even for the primary grades.
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Category: Videos
My First Video Shoot
I am working on my last project for my integrated media and storytelling class, which is going to be an iMovie, with some added pictures and audio. Today I went and shot the video and pictures, and I just wanted to share a few of the things I learned along the way. I’ll be posting the finished project once I get it all edited (I promised my subjects I’d put it up here) so stay tuned, but in the meantime:
- It is harder than you’d think to make sure you aren’t cutting off a subject’s head in your shot
- I drink too much coffee to hold a camera steady
- Sometimes the B Roll contains the real gems
- People are comfortable in a group, but get them alone and they can freeze up
- Fluorescent lighting is no one’s friend
- A rolling desk chair can be a fun, and useful prop
- I still hate how my voice sounds when it is being recorded
- The smaller the camera, the less people realize you are shooting them
- Sometimes getting the shot means getting down on the floor, or up on a table
- I’m really tall, I’m really nice, I give good hugs, and I’m like totally old enough to have a husband by now. (My subjects might have been more interested in me than the science, but the interviews were great!)
Now here’s a little hint about what shooting my last project entailed, and what my topic will be:
Covering The Wisconsin Science Festival
In my integrated media and storytelling class this semester our first project was to cover an event using pictures and audio, and combine it into a slideshow. I chose the first Wisconsin Science Festival at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.
I had some upload problems trying to convert from a SoundSlides project into something uploadable but I finally got there. I edited the pictures in Photoshop and iPhoto, and edited the audio using Audacity. I lost a lot of photo quality in the conversion, but please watch and let me know what you think. This was my first foray into multi-media so any feedback would be much appreciated.
Science For Six-Year-Olds: The States Of Matter
This is a special post for my science blogging buddies in Mrs. Podolak’s (my Mom’s) class at Lincoln-Hubbard Elementary School. This year I will periodically be blogging about the topics the first graders study for their science units. All of these special posts will be distinguished by the title “Science For Six-Year-Olds.” Even if you’ve already passed the first grade, I hope you’ll still enjoy these posts as we go back to basics to learn about science.
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Hello First Graders! I am so excited to be your blogging buddy this year. My name is Erin, and I’m a science journalist. A science journalist is someone who writes about different science discoveries, and tries to talk about science in ways that everyone can understand. I go to school at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Have any of you ever been to Wisconsin? Mrs. Podolak can show you where Wisconsin is on the map. I grew up in New Jersey just like you, but now I’m pretty far away. I moved here to learn more about being a science journalist.
I heard from Mrs. Podolak that you are studying the states of matter. Matter is anything that occupies space and has mass. Matter comes in different forms, which you should already be familiar with. There are solids, liquids, and gases. A solid is firm or hard and has a fixed shape. A liquid flows and moves, and can change shape based on the container it is in. A gas is something that expands to fill any space available.
I think the following song could help you understand the difference between solids, liquids, and gases. It is by a band called They Might Be Giants: