Student-Centered Multimedia Project

Project Title: An Animal Survival Adaptation Habitat iMovie

General Project Goal for Students: Students will create a video on their assigned habitat:
desert, arctic, forest, rainforest, or ocean and explain at least one survival adaptation
(structure) of their chosen animal within that particular habitat. Students will create their
videos on the iPad using the application iMovie

Specific Outcomes:

● Students will understand features of their habitat enough to effectively explain what
makes their habitat different from other habitats.
● Students will be able to create a video about their animal describing their animal
survival adaptation.
● Students will work in teams to complete their projects.
● Students will work cooperatively in groups to create an engaging audio, text and visual
iMovie presentation.

Audience : The fourth grade math and science students will complete this project after
researching about their animals in the groups’ chosen habitat.

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 Content Outline

Lesson Title : An Animal Survival Adaptation Habitat iMovie

Grade Level: 4th Grade Science

TEKS:
4.9 Organisms and environments. The student knows and understands that living organisms within
an ecosystem interacts with one another and with their environment. The student is expected to :

(1) investigate that most producers need sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to make
their own food, while consumers are dependent on other organisms for food; and

A. Describe the flow of energy through food webs, beginning with the Sun, and
predict how changes in the ecosystem affect the food web.

4.10 Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms undergo similar life processes
and have structures that help them survive within their environment. The student is expected to:

(1) Explore how structures and functions enable organisms to survive in their environment;

A. Explore and describe examples of traits that are inherited from parents to
offspring such as eye color and shapes of leaves and behaviors that are learned
such as reading a book and a wolf pack teaching their pups to hunt effectively.

Lesson Description :

Students will know that organisms or animals have different adaptations or structures to help
organisms to survive within their environment (habitat). Students will understand that different
living organisms in an ecosystem interact with their environment.

Timeline- 6 Days

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 Day 1 • “Hook” student interest of different environments or habitats using a
TEASe video.
• Students will be introduced to the ocean, forest, rainforest, desert, and
arctic environments or habitat by discussing the physical characteristics of
the various habitats recording characteristics on Post-it Notes onto the
interactive word wall anchor chart.
• Introduce the multimedia project overview to students so they can be
thinking about an animal and habitat they may want to research further.
• Students will review multiple habitats in one day and view a Brain Pop Jr.
habitat video and quiz.

Day 2 • Students will Rally Robin share possible food webs within those
environments using picture cards explaining the movement of energy
through the food web. Then participate in a gallery walk of food webs.
Student groups will choose one food web to illustrate on an index card
and add it to the interactive word wall anchor chart.
• Students will review multiple habitats in one day and view a different
Brain Pop Jr. video and quiz.
Day 3 • The teacher will facilitate a discussion about adaptations, beginning with
an image of a sea turtle on a beach. The teacher will ask what adaptations
or features help this turtle survive in its environment? Students will define
what an adaptation is and write it in their science notebook.
• Students will be given various plastic animal representations for them to
observe and think about survival adaptations.
• Students will each have an opportunity to share their animals’ survival
adaptation, but they will not be able to repeat previous adaptations that
have already been shared by another classmate.
• Each group will add an adaptation to each of the different environment
interactive word wall anchor charts. Students will add their animal
adaptation description to their science notebooks.
• Students will review multiple habitats in one day and view a different
Brain Pop Jr. video and quiz.

Day 4 • Introduce multimedia project.

• All students will research an animal they want to learn more about prior
to being placed with in a habitat group.
• Complete Decide Phase.
Day 5 • Complete Develop Phase
Day 6
• Complete Evaluation Phase
• Group presentations of final iMovie video on SeeSaw through the class
projector

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DECIDE PHASE:
Teacher role:
Standards/Goals:
● Students will learn about different environments including physical characteristics and
food webs within those environments.
● Students will learn about various survival adaptations or structures that help organisms
survive in their particular environment.
● Students will choose an organism from a particular habitat they will research.
● Students will collaborate together with group members to create a video explaining
each of their animals’ survival adaptations within their habitat.
Pre-requisite Skills/Tasks:
● Use of iMovie to create video.
● Use of SeeSaw to turn in the video for class viewing.
● Use of PicCollage to create storyboard for video.
● Use of Chromebook and internet searches to research animals and habitats using
various predetermined websites.
● Knowledge of survival structures or adaptations and habitats.
● Knowledge of vocabulary: organisms, environments, structures, adaptations, etc.
Assessment Techniques:
● Daily group check-in.
● Group checklist of required activities.
● Storyboard of video in PicCollage.
● Teacher evaluation rubric
● Team evaluation rubric
● Group participation
● Self-evaluation rubric
Grouping Strategy:
● Students will work in groups of 3-4.
● Students will be grouped according to choice of their particular organism and the
environment it survives in.
● Students will be assigned roles within the group by the teacher.
● Roles will be:
o Leader- Project Organizer, organizes the final project by adding music and makes
sure all members have contributed their part of the project.
o Monitor- Time Keeper/Keeps students on task and helps with adding images to the
video.

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 o Presenter- Radio Voice Recorder, in charge of adding audio/voice recordings to the
video.
o Recorder- Photo production manager finds and places images in the video.

Computer Time:
● Student groups will have daily access to a class set of Chromebooks and two iPads per
group.
Resources: (Students will be taking notes in their science notebooks and in their animal research report
outlines.)

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/ess05.sci.ess.watcyc.biomemap/biomes/
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/animalneeds/animals.swf
http://mrnussbaum.com/biomes/habflash.swf
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/science/living_things/plant_animal_habitats/play/
http://www.mbgnet.net/index.html

Student role:
Brainstorm:
● Students will need to have prior knowledge and experience with iMovie, PicCollage,
Seesaw, and Chromebooks programs and applications.
● Students will view a small iMovie trailer of a completed video project.
● Students will discuss the animals, their survival adaptations, and the order of
presenting the animals in the video.
● Students will create a storyboard using PicCollage on the iPad.
Research:
● Students will research different organism’s survival structures and the habitats they
survive in.
● Students will research the animal/organisms environment and research the animal’s
statistics for their individual animal research project.

DESIGN PHASE:
Teacher role:
• Present grading rubric for project evaluation (page 10).
• Show an example and non-examples of animal survival adaptations using images.
• Provide groups with a flow chart template (page 8) and completion checklist (page 7).

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 • Provide groups with feedback.

Student role:
• Groups will collaborate to create iMovie (each group member must research and find
images of their animal, the survival adaptation, and text describing the adaptation).
• Students will complete the flow chart (page 8).
• Students will complete the PicCollage or storyboard page for their storyboard (page 9).

DEVELOP PHASE
Teacher role:
● Facilitate groups rotations of technology
● Troubleshooting issues
● Assist students as needed
● Provide feedback
● Monitor behavior, provide green/red card on task reminders will groups work
● Provide QR code for SeeSaw for students to load their final videos for class viewing

Student role:
● Find and add images and pictures
● Write and add text to the video
● Record audio/voice to add to the video
● Finalize the iMovie with music and transitions
● Save the movie to the iPad, then load the final project to SeeSaw
● Present video to the class through SeeSaw

EVALUATE PHASE:
Teacher role:
● Complete student assessment with grading rubric (page 10)
● Revise any component of the project for future use
Student role:
● Evaluate peer group members (page 11)
● Complete the self-evaluation (page 11)

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 CHECKLIST FOR DECIDE PHASE

Check when complete

Do you have…? (teacher will check off):
Image of animal survival adaptation
Text:
Naming the adaptation structure (example: Teeth)

Text for audio:

Describing how the adaptation is used (Example: The tiger uses its
teeth for tearing and cutting meat)

Image of animal in habitat

Text- animal name

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 FLOWCHART FOR DESIGN PHASE-Each group member must complete their section
of the flowchart

Name-
Name-
Image of animal adaptation Image of animal adaptation
Text of animal adaptation
Text of animal adaptation
Text of audio the use of the
Text of audio the use of the
animal adaptation
animal adaptation
Image of animal in the habitat
Image of animal in the habitat
and name of animal
and name of animal

Name-

Name- Image of animal adaptation

Image of animal adaptation
Text of animal adaptation
Text of audio the use of the
animal adaptation
Image of animal in the habitat
and name of animal
Text of animal adaptation
Text of audio the use of the
animal adaptation
Image of animal in the habitat
and name of animal

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TEMPLATE FOR DESIGN PHASE:
Storyboard Template- https://www.printablepaper.net/category/storyboard
Use the storyboard template paper to design your storyboard for your movie, this can be
completed on paper or by ordering images in PicCollage like a storyboard template online.
*student choice of format…include all elements from the flow chart

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RUBRIC FOR DESIGN PHASE: (SHOW STUDENT EXPECATIONS) AND EVALUATE PHASES:

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RUBRIC FOR EVALUATION PHASE (PEER EVALUATION)
Name: Excellent Good Needs Explain
Improvement

Worked hard, was Worked on project, Didn’t work on

always on task, and was on task project, was off task,
completed all of sometimes, and and didn’t complete
their part of the completed some of their part.
project. their part of the
project.
Worked hard, was Worked on project, Didn’t work on
always on task, and was on task project, was off task,
completed all of sometimes, and and didn’t complete
their part of the completed some of their part.
project. their part of the
project.
Worked hard, was Worked on project, Didn’t work on
always on task, and was on task project, was off task,
completed all of sometimes, and and didn’t complete
their part of the completed some of their part.
project. their part of the
project.
Worked hard, was Worked on project, Didn’t work on
always on task, and was on task project, was off task,
completed all of sometimes, and and didn’t complete
their part of the completed some of their part.
project. their part of the
project.

RUBRIC FOR EVALUATION PHASE (SELF EVALUATION)

Name: Excellent Good Needs Things you

Improvement would change

Worked hard, was Worked on project, Didn’t work on project,

always on task, and was on task sometimes, was off task, and didn’t
completed all of their and completed some of complete their part.
part of the project. their part of the
project.

1. What did you like about this project?

2. What would you change about this project for future students?

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