A simple but most effective tool to reach young people

1. A simple but most effective tool to reach young people Brigitte Pagana-Hammer Szeged, 20. -22.09. 2006

3. CISCI • What is CISCI? • The Work with CISCI in the Class-room Available: January 2007

4. What is CISCI?

5. CISCI-consortium • 10 universities, e-learning and marketing companies, outreach institutions from Europe and the U.S.A.

6. Movies and the young generation • Moving pictures of any kind are cool, involving, inspiring • Movies create trends, and have a broader impacton young people than any other media CISCI • addresses pupils via teachers as science mediators • provides „new“ involving media for use in the classroom

7. The USP of CISCI • Combination of two involving,excitingand high-impact media: Movies and Internet • CISCI provides teachers with simple-to-use, just-in-time, well-prepared lessons with movie scenes and video clips as „anchor“ for the lesson in the classroom

8. CISCI: part of the NUCLEUS Cluster Science on Stage International Festival • Journal: Science in School • European Science Educational Portal: Xplora

9. Content unit of CISCI Movie: • Title, year, producer and director • Description and website • Link to trailer site and corresponding DVD • Scientific topic and subject Movie scene: • Videoclip or time interval of scene on corresponding DVD • Author and editor of content unit • Title and description of scene • Scientific keywords • Basic (10+ yrs) and advanced (14+ yrs) explanation, scientific background information for teachers

10. Deep Impact (1998) • Production: Dream Works, Paramount • Director: Mimi Leder • Actors: Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Morgan Freeman, Maximillian Schell

11. Description of movie scene: A comet slams into the Earth • As a comet passes through the atmosphere it becomes a giant fiery ball • When it hits the ocean it produces a mega-tsunami (around 400 m in height in the film) • The tsunami reaches and devastates New York City and Washington and floods vast coastal areas

12. Explanations and scientific descriptions: • Structure and origin of comets • Scientific descriptions of impacts of comets and asteroids on Earth • Shown scene of impact and its devastating effects in the shown movie scene are essentially scientifically correct Comet Hale-Popp in 1997 Core of comet Wild 2

13. Tsunamis • The word Tsunami in the image above is represented by two Japanese characters. • The top character in the image above, "tsu”, means harbour, while the bottom character, "nami”, means "wave • The name comes from the observation of Japanese fisherman who returned to their harbour finding it totally devastated, although they have not noticed anything out in the sea

14. Mission “Deep Impact” • This created a huge explosion, where one can study: • What are some basic properties of the comet: how is its surface formed, how dense is it, how strongly is it held together and how massive is it? • What is he composition of the comet? • Can the course of a comet be altered to reduce the effect of, or avoid, a collision with Earth? • First results show that comets are rather an “icy mud-balls” than a “dirty snowballs’ as previously believed, because they contain twice as much dust as water. In the scientific NASA-mission „Deep Impact“ (named after the blockbuster “Deep Impact”) a projectile (impactor) of about 300 kg launched from a space ship slammed into comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005

15. The asteroid Apophis On April 13, 2029 the asteroid Apophis (named after the Egyptian serpent-like god of evil) having a size of about 300 m will pass the Earth at a distance of only 36650 km (location of our satellites, 1/10 of the distance to he moon). In the evening of this day we will see then this asteroid in Europe with our naked eye. The Egyptian sun god Re attacking his opponentApophis with a butcher knife

16. Name of Apophis The co-discoverer of asteroid Apophis named it not because ofthe Egyptian god Apophis, but probably after a character in the TV-series „Star Gate SG-1“ The actor Peter Williams as Apophis in the TV-series „StarGate SG-1“

17. Impact of Apophis • On 13 April, 2036 there will be a change of 1:8000 that Apophis slams into the Pacific ocean. • It would create a hole in the sea about 2500 m deep creating a tsunami of up to 20 m height at the Pacific coast lines. • There exist now plans to send a transponder (location device like the ones in aeroplanes) to determine the exact trajectory of Apophis. Afterwards a space ship of about 4 tons could hit the asteroid and deflect it in such a way that it would miss the Earth. • That this is for the first time in the history of mankind is in principle accomplishable was shown by the mission „Deep Impact“ to the comet Tempel 1

18. The Work with CISCI in the Class-room: an Action- Research Project Team: Christa Deinlein, Stefan Krejci, Brigitte Pagana-Hammer,Sandra Sudhop

19. The project plan • subject: physics • movie: Pitch Black • target group: students of 13 years (junior high school) in the 2nd physics - course • 6 groups each of about 20 students • 3 teachers • 3different schools → two parallel courseswith the same teacher • same basic lesson plan (prepared together) individually elaborated by the teachers and applied in their classes

20. Lesson plan (2 x 50 min) • 1st session: • 5’ introduction: eclipses • 5’ clip (1st presentation) • task: write down your observations, questions, … • 5’ clip (2nd presentation) • 20’ discussion, pictures of eclipses • 5’ summary of the 1st session • 2nd session • group work • group 1: collage • group 2: science fiction short story • Feedback & test

21. Additional didactic material • experiments • pictures • graphs • working sheets

22. Evaluation tools • video graphs • group work in class - students’ products (summery, collage, graphic presentation of the phenomena shown in the movie, etc.) • test (added knowledge; equal for all students) • students‘ feedback (equal for all students) • teachers’ statement

23. Teachers opinion • students are motivated and interested • new approach - starting from exciting experiences usually not correlated with school • stimulating for critical vision of movie scenes often considered a priori correct • interesting analyses and discussion • high attention and concentration • participation in the test and the feedback session was optional andout of the schedule – all students participated • complex content and scientific explanation (eclipses) was rather difficult for pupils of this age • no technical problems

24. Thank you for your attention! Contacts: www.cisci.net ohu@kph.tuwien.ac.at http://www.pagana.info brigitte@pagana.info