YEARS 7–12 IDEAS
ARTICLES
FOR THE CLASSROOM
Stop motion films to aid understanding in Science
By Susan Filan
In Stage 6 Earth and Environmental Science, students must (until
2018) learn stages in the growth of the Australian continent. I
found that teaching this as static stages was disjointed and, quite
frankly, boring. Students tried to memorise the series of steps, but
never got a feel for the dynamic process of continent formation.
The IT specialist at my school suggested using clay animation
and this was a tremendous hit with students. It provided a creative
outlet, increased engagement and gave students ownership
of their learning. Making movies helped them to visualise and
understand processes that occur over millions of years.
Although I have used this for a very specific Stage 6 outcome, stop
motion movies can be used to illustrate a variety of processes in
Science. Some suggestions include formation of the solar system,
the types and stages in digestion, flow of blood through the heart
to the body and lungs, Newton’s laws, particle movement in
different states of matter, etc. Movies provide opportunities for
creative expression, teamwork and critical thinking as students
grapple with the best way to represent relevant processes and
concepts. For complex processes, break down the task and
scaffold this so that all students contribute to the whole in a
meaningful manner. If the concept is simpler, consider a class
film festival with peer assessment of the merits of each film.
Figure 1: making the model for animation
For growth of the Australian continent, I provide students with a
written description of the basic stages, some labels, a common
colour scheme and an outline of the modern continent. These
help standardise the representations and contribute to continuity
of the group project.
Students learn about their stage, decide upon their animation
strategy, build necessary backgrounds (Figure 1) and then
shoot photos using their phones or a digital camera sitting on
a ring clamp attached to a retort stand (Figures 2 and 3). The
student with the easiest portion of the animation (Stage 1 for this
task) acts as editor and combines all segments into the final film,
adding other illustrations if they wish. This year’s class movie
(minus the unlicensed sound track) is shown in the attached file
https://vimeo.com/300380608.
Figure 2: Shooting photos using a phone
Figure 3: One student
moves the clay and
another takes photos
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 4