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FableVision Resources for a Summer of STEAM

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Get ready for a STEAM-infused summer! The integration of the Arts into STEM adds a dash of creativity into summer learning. Here are just a few of our favorite STEAM projects for you to play with. This list is perfect for parents looking to keep their kids engaged over the summer months—and have fun while doing it!

Looking for something more hands-on? Check out our kite-making activity below, created by FableVision’s Christina Kelly!

Geniverse, Concord Consortium
Geniverse is a free virtual lab environment that allows students to learn about biology through interaction and experimentation. In Geniverse, students are able to investigate dragon phenotypes and genotypes, run breeding experiments, and solve genetic problems. Geniverse encourages students to have fun while learning biological concepts through interaction with mythical beasts but each concept is rooted in science and can be directly applied to both the classroom and the real world.

Good Thinking! The Science of Teaching Science, Smithsonian Science Education Center
Good Thinking! is an engaging and entertaining free web series designed to enhance K-8 science education, and deepen understanding of STEM topics for teachers and students alike through exploration of pedagogical ideas across a range of subject-matter topics like energy, natural selection, and gravity, as well as cognitive research findings on topics such as student motivation, or the myth of left- and right-brained people. Each episode has been vetted by experts and adheres to next generation science standards.

Weather Lab, Smithsonian Science Education Center
Weather Lab is a free online game that allows players to select different ocean currents and air masses that visualize the result of the combination. As a tool used in classrooms, care was taken to ensure the correct symbols and movement of air masses correspond with the weather pattern and land at the exact point on the map. Teachers use the Weather Lab to encourage students to think critically and make predictions. The overall goal is to teach students about the relationship between climate and how it affects them on a personal level. 

Zoombinis, TERC
In Zoombinis, players test their logical reasoning, data analysis, pattern finding, and problem-solving skills as they help Zoombinis complete unique challenges. Through Zoombinis, players learn important life skills including algebraic thinking, data analysis, and theory formulation in a fun and engaging setting. With 12 puzzles and four levels of increasing difficulty in each, players are constantly challenged, improving their problem-solving skills as they advance through the game. Hip, hip, Zoombinis!

Sid the Science Kid, Jim Henson Company/KCET/Los Angeles for PBS Kids
The website created for Sid the Science Kid allows 3-5 year olds to explore and practice scientific methodology through several games that integrate progressive learning and open-ended play. The site encourages collaborative learning between adults and children by providing interactive teachable moments that extend the learning within each game. The Parent/Teacher sections contain free extensive information about the show and the website, and they provide resources to aid adults as they explore science and help answer their children’s questions.

Renegade Buggies, National Center for Families Learning
With retail wrapping, Renegade Buggies encourages free financial and mathematical literacy for the whole family. By combining gaming with money management skills, Renegade Buggies is a fun way for both children and parents to learn basic budgeting skills. The game has four levels: unit prices, buying in bulk, coupons, and promos. The entertaining gameplay meets the educational goals seamlessly, and customizations up the fun factor: visit the virtual body shop with your earned coins for a stunt suit, bunny ears, and more!

Fab@School Maker Studio, FableVision Learning
Fab@School Maker Studio is an easy-to-use web-based digital design and fabrication tool that invites students in grades 3-8 to experience STEM and STEAM learning in a more engaging, personally meaningful way. Fab@School Maker Studio offers a unique on-ramp to engineering with cross-curricular activities ranging from simple to sophisticated. The program supports a variety of materials and a large set of tools from scissors, rulers, and pens to 2D cutters, laser cutters, 3D printers, and more!

Get Crafty with Christina Kelly, FableVision's Production Designer!

Meet Christina, the mastermind behind our new summer banner full of cats and kites. She’s taking inspiration from her summerscape to show you how to make (and fly!) your own handmade kite this summer. Let your imagination soar with her step-by-step instructions.

 

 

 

 

Collect your supplies. You will need:

  • Tissue paper
  • Tape
  • 2 wooden dowels
  • Scissors
  • Ruler
  • Markers
  • Ribbon for the tail
  • String

1. Sketch and cut your kite sail
Fold the paper in half and taking a pencil, trace a half diamond the length of your dowel. Carefully cut out the shape and unfold your paper.

2. Build your kite structure
Take your wooden dowel and lay it down the center of your sail, from the top of the diamond to the bottom. Tape at the ends to secure the dowel to the sail. Take the second dowel and lay it down to form a “t” with the first piece. Tape the ends together.

3. Make a tail
Using your ribbon, add a few tails to your kite. For a fun look, you can curl the ribbon with your scissors. See directions here to learn how.

4. Attach your line
Take the string and tie it to the right and left hand sides of the horizontal stick. Then tie the string to the center of that string for your flying line.

5. Decorate your kite
Add a dash of personality to your kite! I really like cats so I’m making my kite a purr-fect blend of kittens and pizzazz.

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6. Go out there and fly your kite!
You’re ready! Just find a strong breeze and watch your kite soar!

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A-ha! Moments and The Birth of “Good Thinking!”

Every collaboration has an origin story. “Just as in science, ‘a-ha!’ moments don’t really come out of nowhere,” Jean Flanagan of the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) explains. But after hard work, a lot of research, and a dash of creativity, an “a-ha!” moment did happen – and that moment turned into Good Thinking! The Science of Teaching Science, SSEC’s new, animated professional development series for science educators.

Jean is a Science Education Research Specialist on SSEC's curriculum and communications team, and was a key player in developing the series.  “We had an incredibly diverse and talented team who put a lot of hard work into the central challenge: conveying research findings through breezy, humorous exchanges between animated characters,” Jean says. She credits much of the success of the project to the FableVision/SSEC team’s willingness to adapt to different communication strategies, as we worked to create a ground-breaking professional development resource.

FableVision chatted with her about Good Thinking!’s origin story, the ideas that started it all, and the animated character she most relates to.

Can you share a bit about how the FableVision Studios/SSEC partnership formed?
It all started with a bid from FableVision that had two awesome concepts: “It Came From the Fridge” and “Public Science Announcement.” In the first, we see a rotten fruit from the teacher’s lounge fridge saying, “so, I heard you had some questions about photosynthesis?” In the second, an omniscient narrator presides, 1950s PSA style, over a colorful classroom in retro-style animation. We immediately took to these ideas as awesome ways to get the teacher into dialogues that wouldn’t otherwise happen in a classroom populated only by teacher and students. Fans of the series can probably easily see how these concepts evolved into our (less rotten) talking classroom objects and our (dumber) narrator. A kickoff meeting and many hilarious conference calls later, we were a team!

Original Good Thinking! concept art by Renee Kurilla.

Original Good Thinking! concept art by Pete Paquette.

What were the steps in creating Good Thinking?
It might be easier to list some steps that weren’t part of the process! Here’s an egregiously abbreviated version:

  1. Search the science education literature for topics that are well-studied and have actionable advice for teachers.
  2. For each topic, develop a template that lists the overall goal of the video, key misconceptions, correct ideas, where the misconceptions come from, and how this knowledge should impact a teacher’s instruction.
  3. Work with multiple content and entertainment writers to write, edit, and revise three drafts of each script. Each script was reviewed by a subject matter expert, often someone who was involved in the research highlighted in the script.
  4. Work with voice actors to record the scripts.
  5. Create an animatic (moving storyboard) of each episode. Visuals were reviewed by subject matter experts again, as well as the whole SSEC team.
  6. Produce a rough cut (full animation, but no lip sync or sound design), which is then reviewed by the SSEC team.
  7. Produce a final cut (edits incorporated, lip sync, sound and music added). This is reviewed again by SSEC and then a Master is created.

What was one of the biggest challenges of creating Good Thinking?
The subject matter we wanted to convey has never really gotten a lot of play in popular media. While “science explainers” are popular on YouTube and general education tips aren’t that hard to find, very few non-academic resources exist that tackle the subtleties of the interface of science content, student thinking, and pedagogy. This meant that we didn’t have any examples to work from. Even many of our science writers and subject matter experts were initially confused by the specific goals of the project. This challenge forced us to test and refine our communication strategies multiple times before finalizing each script, ultimately strengthening the project.

What was it like to balance the research/science and the creative in developing the series? What was a stand out “a-ha!” moment during the series development?
Well, just as in science, “a-ha!” moments don’t really come out of nowhere in any project. While we originally considered having the teacher be off-screen, one of our best decisions was to put Ms. Isabella Reyes front and center — her intelligence, quirkiness, and drive to learn and improve perfectly embody the incredible respect we have for the teaching profession, and teachers have told us they find her very relatable.   

Can you share a bit about the students? They have such different personalities, why not make them all uniform?
It was important to us to convey the idea that science is for all students, regardless of personality or background. And from the teacher’s perspective, the more diversity of ideas, background knowledge, and approaches students come in with, the richer every activity and class discussion will be. Plus, we wanted an excuse to throw in some skateboarding and breakdancing.

What classroom character do you relate to and why?
In 5th grade, I guess I was a Dimitri-Shawna hybrid. I could definitely be a bit of a know-it-all in science class, but for the most part I was pretty spacey and prone to daydreaming and bad poetry. Now I’m more of a Gummerson — a bit disgruntled (working in education will do that) but ever optimistic! 

What is in Ms. Reyes’s future?
I hope a nice, long vacation somewhere beautiful and exotic that’s not Amar’s brain. Then we’d like to put her to work doing more videos.

Jean Flanagan is a Science Education Research Specialist on the SSEC's curriculum and communications team. At SSEC she works to translate research and policy into practice, informing the development of standards-aligned curriculum and professional development resources. Most recently she served as a project lead in the development of a new web series on “the science of teaching science”: Good Thinking! Prior to joining SSEC, Flanagan worked as a Research Associate at AAAS Project 2061. While there she worked closely with key national standards documents—including the Benchmarks, NSES, the NRC's Framework, and early drafts of the NGSS—and contributed to multiple federally-funded research and development projects focused on best practices in standards-aligned science curriculum and assessment. Through this work she spent a significant amount of time working closely with teachers and students in classrooms around the country to field test assessments and curriculum materials.  

Don’t miss a single episode! Watch the series on SSEC’s YouTube channel.

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Animated professional development? Now that’s some “Good Thinking!”

Marjee Chmiel is a curious person. She’s curious about stories and science and where the two cross paths. Marjee is the Associate Director for Curriculum and Communications at Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC). Earlier this year, SSEC and FableVision Studios unveiled a new free animated (yep, we said animated!) professional development series, entitled Good Thinking!: The Science of Teaching Science. Explaining science can be tricky, and explaining “the ideas we build in our mind to make sense of the world” – as Marjee calls it – required a non-limited visual medium. FableVision talked with Marjee about the Good Thinking! series, the subject matters we tackle, and how this research-based series is providing a one-of-a-kind resource to science educators everywhere. And be sure to watch the entire Good Thinking! series on YouTube here. 

What is the Good Thinking! The Science of Teaching Science origin story?
A few things came together. I was in Johnston County in North Carolina to see some of the teacher professional development going on as part of our Investing in Innovation Grant from Department of Education. I was amazed by how in-depth and fantastic the content was that the teachers were getting. While most teachers were working at the elementary level, they were learning things about science pedagogy that I didn’t learn until I was in a doctoral program for science education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (which is considered one of the top programs in the country). I was really impressed and thrilled with this training and the teachers seemed to love it, too.

The down side was that the training takes place during the summer, which means that a lot of teachers miss it, or teachers are not hired on yet, or get transferred to different grades or schools by the time the school year starts. So teachers and principals were asking us to come up with a way to provide some of this training. But what I saw in the face-to-face training was so collaborative. Teachers were learning from other teachers. How do you capture that dynamic while making it accessible and flexible to accommodate hectic schedules?

Good Thinking! certainly can’t replicate that sort of experience, but I felt like the videos and their format started to get at some of the needs that had emerged.

My doctoral dissertation was a content analysis of science education web video, so I had a mental catalog of what was out there and what we were lacking. The thing I saw was that there was a lot of content out there on the sort of the “just the facts ma’am” parts of science. But the finer points of how humans understand their world and what it means to shepherd developing brains into scientific inquiry were locked up in research journals. Unless you were lucky enough to take a world-class doctoral course or participate in our professional development, it would be a challenge to get your hands on that knowledge.

I discussed the feedback we had gotten from our teachers and administrators with people back at Smithsonian Science Education Center and the idea for these brief videos that address common misconceptions about science and how science is taught began to emerge. The title “Good Thinking” seemed obvious and catchy.

Who’s the Good Thinking! audience? How do you imagine accessing and utilizing the information in these videos?
Our primary audience is elementary school teachers who are teaching science. In elementary school, you have to be quick and nimble with the content you teach and it isn’t uncommon to move through the grade levels and teach different grades. Accessible content refreshers are critical for this type of work and online web video has been an amazing resource to that end. But instead of offering a general science lesson, we wanted to couch the science in a way that matters most to educators. We wanted to tie into the types of questions that might arise in your students. Furthermore, we thought there was a need for providing this type of information from a trusted resource such as Smithsonian. That is why we were careful to provide citations with each video. This is a research-based resource that is accessible and available for any teacher anywhere, anytime.

In addition to teachers, we imagine the series will appeal to science nerds everywhere.

Some might say it is unusual to create an animated professional development resource for adults. Why did you choose to animate Good Thinking! vs. a live action instructional video?
At the heart of this video series are mental models: the ideas we build in our mind to make sense of the world. We wanted to explore mental models that people have about cells, atoms and rain clouds. Live action felt too restrictive. We wanted to go places that cameras can’t go. Animation was a logical choice. It allows us to convey multiple ideas at once and construct actual mental models, watch the water cycle take place, or see the total energy of a system. I honestly don’t see how this would have worked as a live series.

What’s your favorite way that a science topic has woven into an episode?
I love the way we talk about what it is that scientists actually do in the Learning Styles video. I get sad when I hear people talking about things like “dancing mitosis” or making a rap about the rock cycle as a way to “engage multiple learning styles” in order to learn science. All that does is have kids memorize facts. When people go into the voting booth or make health decisions for their family, I don’t care if they know the difference between prophase and anaphase. We don’t need people in congress who know the difference between metamorphic and sedimentary rock (though it would be nice)! And that’s all that stuff does, it is a disguise for rote, decontextualized recall knowledge.

How do the Good Thinking! characters explain or personify the science topics being communicated?
All of the characters in the series are curious people. Ms. Reyes wants to learn more about her profession. The children want to learn more about their world. Those curious humans are at the center of the series and they are at the center of science.

We’re asking you to play favorites – who’s your favorite classroom character on Good Thinking?
Definitely Bunsen. My undergrad is in chemistry and I taught chemistry, so we’ve already got that connection. He cracks me up.

Marjee Chmiel is the Associate Director for Curriculum and Communications at Smithsonian Science Education Center. In this role, she oversees print and digital product development for the unit. Marjee is a former high school chemistry and physics teacher who has also worked as a technology administrator at the elementary and high school level. Marjee has lead development on numerous award-winning projects at Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) and National Geographic's The JASON Project. Marjee holds a doctorate in educational research and evaluation with a special focus on the intersection of science education and educational technology. Her publications on education range from the practical to the theoretical with articles ranging from The Science Teacher to the Oxford Handbook on Mixed Methods research. As a hobby, Marjee has her own micro-press which was nominated for best new small press and best book design in 2012. Marjee resides in Maryland with her husband and their two small, yippy dogs, but she retains the pizza snobbery of her native Chicago.

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Good Thinking! A New Approach to Professional Development for Science Educators

Post written by Jean Flanagan, a Science Education Research Specialist at Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) and a project lead for the Good Thinking! animated web series. You can read the original post on SSEC’s STEMVisions blog. 

Subscribe to SSEC's YouTube channel to stay up-to-date on the series! 

Findings from science education research rarely make their way into classroom practice. As I’ve discussed before on the PLOS Sci-Ed blog, there are a lot of entrenched barriers that continue to separate these efforts. For one, most science education research is still primarily published in journal articles that are often difficult to access — and always dense, lengthy reads. Additionally, teacher professional development (PD) workshops, often developed in conjunction with researchers and intended to bridge this gap, are costly and time-intensive to implement. While these programs are often important and meaningful experiences, logistics still limit their reach.

Ever since I first got involved with science education research, I have been increasingly disturbed by this disconnect. That’s why I was incredibly excited when our Associate Director of Curriculum and Communications here at SSEC, Marjee Chmiel, approached me with the preliminary plans for the Good Thinking! project.

THE IDEA
The basic concept was to create short, animated web videos for teachers about research findings on common student misconceptions and other pedagogical topics. Marjee and I had both been inspired by the film A Private Universe and research on student mental models and conceptual change. We had also seen Phil Sadler’s recent findings showing that students of teachers who had both strong content knowledge and strong knowledge of student misconceptions learned more than students of teachers who only had strong content knowledge. Clearly there was a need for PD that helps teachers understand common student ideas and how to work with these ideas in building a more scientific understanding.

THE TEAM
I was already familiar with what many of the most common student ideas were, as I had spent many years working with the team at AAAS Project 2061 developing and researching misconception-based assessment items, conducting literature reviews, student interviews, and analyses of written responses. Marjee had done her dissertation on how science teachers use video to share ideas, and was already formulating a script for a video on the basics of conceptual change theory. We were eager to get started!

However, any animation project is a huge undertaking and we needed a team. Soon we hired a Series Coordinator, Nate Fedrizzi, a conservation biologist with a background in science media, and began lining up content writers and subject matter experts (some of whom had contributed to the research we cited).

We contracted with FableVision, a Boston-based studio, to create the animations for the series. Under the passionate direction of Creative Director Leigh Hallisey and Producer Danielle Gillis, this quickly blossomed into a wonderful creative partnership, and each episode now benefits from the unique perspectives of both science and education writers and animation and entertainment writers.

TEACHERS CAN HAVE FUN TOO!
Yes, they’re animated. And yes, they’re for teachers! Unfortunately in the current policy climate, teachers have a pretty thankless job. There is always “one more thing” being added to their list of responsibilities, and professional development often means taking time out of their summer, or else struggling to find a substitute. Good Thinking! is meant to be respectful of teachers’ time, and to bring a little bit of humor into their days. But beyond being fun, we think animation can be a surprisingly effective medium.

ANIMATION, NARRATIVE, AND DIALOGUE
Another inspiration for our work came from the research of Derek Muller, a science educator and creator of the massively popular Veritasium series. He summarized some of his findings in a video called “Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos”. He found that “content explainer” videos are less effective at teaching new concepts than “dialogue” or “refutation” videos, which explicitly include and address common student misconceptions or perspectives and work through why those ideas are inaccurate or need refining.

As Nate mentioned in an earlier STEMVisions post, digital technologies have the potential to move beyond traditional lecture-based approaches. We envisioned animation as an opportunity to visualize something teachers can only dream of — the inside of their students’ brains! (A scary thought perhaps, but one with real pedagogical value.) By using this conceit we can convey research findings on common alternative mental models, and then use narrative — a story about the focal teacher and her students — to work through the finer points of uncovering and addressing them in the classroom. We also use animation to explore scientific phenomena that are too big, small, fast, or slow to demonstrate with live filming, like the causes of the seasons, or the relationship between cells and atoms.

As far as we know, Good Thinking! is the first substantial effort to translate science education research findings from journal articles into an animated format. Our team, and the teachers we’ve worked with so far, are very excited about the result, but we also recognize that this series is an experiment. We look forward to receiving feedback and hope to have the opportunity to refine our process and develop more episodes – the list of important topics and useful findings is always growing!

REFERENCES
AAS Project 2061 Science Assessment. (2011). http://assessment.aaas.org/

Muller, D. A., Sharma, M. D., & Reimann, P. (2008). Raising cognitive load with linear multimedia to promote conceptual change. Science Education, 92(2), 278–296.

Muller, D. A., Sharma, M. D., Eklund, J., & Reimann, P. (2007). Conceptual change through vicarious learning in an authentic physics setting. Instructional Science, 35(6), 519–533.

Muller, D. A., Bewes, J., Sharma, M. D., & Reimann, P. (2007). Saying the wrong thing: improving learning with multimedia by including misconceptions. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 24(2), 144–155.

Schneps, M., & Sadler, P. M. (1989). A private universe [Video]. Santa Monica, CA: Pyramid Film and Video.

Sadler, P. M., Sonnert, G., Coyle, H. P., Cook-Smith, N., & Miller, J. L. (2013). The influence of teachers’ knowledge on student learning in middle school physical science classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 50(5), 1020-1049.

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