MakerSpace Blog Post

 Digital MakerSpace

After reviewing the materials provided such as the Gardening TEKS, the Maker-Based Instruction slide, and the screencast, I believe I have found a MakerSpace concept that I would like to bring to fruition. With the Gardening TEKS (Science) "Investigating the different organisms that would make up our gardening ecosystem (How will they interact with one another? Which are producers, consumers?)" I think it would be fun to have the students (3rd-5th grade) use motion media to create a clip of a garden ecosystem. This Gardening TEKS would also tie into TEKS 3.9(A) "Observe and describe the physical characteristics of environments and how they support populations and communities within an ecosystem".

In essence, the student might have a garden scene, where a bee collects pollen from a flower, or a flower blooms as it sucks nutrients from the soil. The students can research the different producers and consumers in a common garden ecosystem, and recreate any given scene using a short motion media presentation. What I like most about this project, is that motion media is multimodal, and can be expressed in many different ways, like stop motion, animation, flipbooks, and even sprites. This activity might be compromised by time, but I am confident that it can be adjusted if there is prep work involved. For example, my team an I could bring props pre-made for stop motion, or develop sprites to build a scene. 

Materials for this might include paper and pencil, an ipad or tablet, any animation app (there are free apps available which can be used on a phone or computer), google slides, the concepts app, any other props for a motion picture, like legos or clay models, or even an AI Generator!

An example of this activity might be this youtube clip of an animated nature scene, or this lego garden.

Some ISTE CT Standards I believe best suit these are 

5.3.c Plan collaboratively with other educators to create learning activities that cross disciplines to strengthen student understanding of CT and CS concepts and transfer application of knowledge in new contexts.

& 5.1.d Develop resilience and perseverance when approaching CS and CT learning experiences, build comfort with ambiguity and open-ended problems, and see failure as an opportunity to learn and innovate.

EDIT: October 10th, 2023

Since the time this post was made, and after some discussions with my partner, Raeleen, I have decided to tweak some portions of the project. We thought it woud be a good idea to create 3D models of a producer and consumer (flower, butterfly, fruit) as a lifecycle to use as models during a stop motion presentation, this way, we are able to use the same manipulatives and digital component for two different TEKS.