Yann Arthus-Bertrand is a French photographer who has become very famous for his splendid aerial photography (1) throughout the world. We saw his exhibit in Chicago, and each time he cares to display his work in public places so that everybody has access to his vision for free. The power of his photos comes from a detailed description for each shot in which he explains the world context of the photo.
He has now gone one step further by filming a spectacular movie about our entire planet. As you can imagine, being a photographer, the cinematography (2) of his movie is beautiful from beginning to end. Once again and because he wants as many people as possible to understand the issues at stake, he is releasing his documentary on June 5th (for the UN world environment day 2009) without any copyright. This means you can watch it for free, distribute it to whomever you want, play it wherever you want and even make remixes of it! so please download it from home-2009.com.
Facebook can reach far and deep into our lives and this article illustrates just the point. In Internet Justice, Asylum explores six instances where people who were wronged manage to bring justice using Facebook.
Based on Still-life with Peaches painting (2004) by Russian artist Gribennikov, the 8th grade students created their own nature morte with Photoshop.The most still lives are from Annelies, Yasmine, Puneet and Tyler
Nature Morte by Gribennikov (2004) - the original
Natures Mortes by Annelies, Yasmine, Puneet and Tyler (2009)
[lesson plan = 2 classes]
Nature morte or still-life: Type of work in which an arrangement of diverse inanimate objects, including items of food (especially fruit and game), plants and artefacts is depicted. This arrangement is often apparently random and is usually within a domestic setting. The form is normally associated with oil painting, but other media have been used, including mosaics, watercolour, collage and photography. Despite the existence of still-life subjects in pre-Classical, Classical and Renaissance art, the form was recognized as a distinct genre only in the 17th century, when it reached the height of its popularity in western Europe, especially the Netherlands (where many of the conventions of Renaissance and Baroque still-life painting originated), France, Spain and Italy. (from the art encyclopedia at answers.com)
This is a cover of Eye of the tiger by PS22 Chorus. If you have not come across their exploits yet, PS22 Chorus is a NY city elementary school choir which is rocking youtube.
Pavan discovered this great video depicting the production of bubble gum. Did you know bubble gum is made out of plastics? Do you know why it’s pink? Follow this video to find out the answers to these questions.
Sree sent a very informative video about the changes taking place in the industry of fishing. New fishing techniques deplete entire areas of the fish regardless of sustainability. The trawler fishing boat are so destructive that their path can be traced by satellite! Nothing bigger than 3 cm make it through their nets.
Deplete: to empty out
Sustainable: capable of being continued with minimal long-term effect on the environment
Harshita did a great job setting up her timeline on the web 2.0 website TimeRime.com. She has mapped 14 items to highlight the birth and development of the Internet.
After a good discussion with another student regarding the role of media in education and the distortion of reality through stereotypes (1), Johanna comes at the right moment with this fantastic video. You will see in this video how a newscaster for Diet.com who spends her life training towards the perfect body still requires some Photoshop touch-up to be magazine-worthy. Never forget that when you are looking at a magazine “99.99% of all celebrity photos are photoshopped.” An artificial reality is not what you want to based your real-life standards upon. Instead of focusing too much on an ephemeral (2) physical appearance, it is much more important to build a warm, positive, open-minded character, attractive to many more people than a clear skin!
This is a second spot Johanna added to the list which will remind you that fast-food is not happy food.
(1) Stereotype: A general mental image of a group or class of people that is usually oversimplified. An advertiser may feature a stereotypical user of his product in order to encourage the audience to identify with the user. For example, housewives are often used in advertisements for cleaning products.
(2) Ephemeral: Lasting for a markedly brief time. Living or lasting only for a day, as certain plants or insects do.
This excellent song from Tom Lehrer (he has a few other funny ones such as his version of the tango…) was sent to us by Divina who is obviously making some great discoveries on the Internet and earning some extra credit. Well done Divina! The song itself is a stop-motion animation made with a lego character moving to the tunes do the Elements song by Tom Lehrer. You can easily do stop-motion animation at home with a digital camera and Windows Movie Maker.
This video discovered by Amrit follows the fascinating whale shark underwater. It also earns Amrit the first extra-credit for the Life -Explorers section!
Many of you spend time outside of class “working” with their computers. Don’t forget that if the work is worth displaying, I will be giving away exatr-credit for these.
Here is an exhibit of the most recent extra-curricular works from my students:
3 images from Pauline with the online photo-editing tool lunapic
For this lesson plan, 10th grade students are turning argumentative and creative to convince their parents of the benefits of staying on the Internet all night long. Designing a convincing outline with Word 2007 SmartArt was a snap and Dewi did it the best as you can see below:
For this introductory lesson to the free 3D modeling program Google SketchUp, the students had to design a 3D flower involving pistil, stem, leaves and of course petals. The best results are from Andreina, Nicolai and Sameer.
I received some excellent submission from our earth day assignment using the online comic creation tool Pixton but none as glorious and humorous as Camille’s:
According a research exposed in the Guardian, napping is an absolutely essential process for all mammals, even NASA pilots see immense benefits in taking naps. Just avoid napping at school!
Quotes from the Guardian article:
“A nap of 60 minutes improves alertness for up to 10 hours. Research on pilots shows that a 26-minute “Nasa” nap in flight (while the plane is manned by a copilot) enhanced performance by 34% and overall alertness by 54%. One Harvard study published last year showed that a 45-minute nap improves learning and memory. Napping reduces stress and lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke, diabetes, and excessive weight gain.”
If you read this article you will also be able to determine your napping profile and whether you are an ark or an owl. Link to the rest of the article
For the love of water (2008) is an essential documentary to understand how scare our water resources are and discuss whether access to water is truly an inalienable human right.
a rather short-sighted human perspective tends to forget where the earth boundaries came from and where they are going. which country are you from on this ever changing map?
tectonics: the branch of geology studying the folding and faulting of the earth’s crust
My 6th graders torn through the picture of this innocent iguana using one of the following online photo editing websites: www.lunapic.com, www.fotoflexer.com, and www.picnik.com. I highly recommend them if you want to have as much fun as they did doing these:
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