Environmental Health: Video

With the combination of both English and Health students at Central Community School in Elkader, Iowa were asked to create a 5 minute video targeted towards youth environmental health issues such as water pollution and air pollution. With help from both the English and Health teachers, the students needed to demonstrate the ability to advocate personal, family and community health. They had to research environmental health issue, present the information in a unique way, and persuade the audience. iMovie and Avid Cinema were two of the technologies that were used to edit their video projects. The use of technology was needed to compile, synthesize and produce their persuasive videos.

One of the positive aspects of this lesson was the peer-teaching that was taken place when the students needed to produce a storyboard to go along with their video. With the help of a teacher, a group of girls were able to start their thinking process and get an understanding of what they wanted to do and how to put it into a storyboard format like the teachers expected

With the help from the school-library media specialist, students were able to evaluate their information and knowledge to make sure that the sources were reliable and valid. The media specialist handed out an evaluation sheet to make the students list two sources and have a discussion on which of these two resources was the best and which was not and if they needed to gather more information and where to find a reliable source.

There was constant reflection back to the English and Health standards of the school district. Applying y standards to the curriculum and expressing the importance of these standards to the students will benefit not only the teacher, but the students as well.