Environmental Immersion and Mobile Filmmaking for Science Education: a New Zealand Pilot Study
Wiebke Finkler 1 , Fabien Medvecky 1, Lloyd Spencer Davis 1 *
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1 University of Otago, NEW ZEALAND* Corresponding Author

Abstract

To test whether environmental immersion and mobile filmmaking (using smartphones or tablets) can engender positive attitudes to science, seventeen Year 10 (14-15 years old) drama students from Queen’s High School, New Zealand, were taken to Westland National Park to make videos about climate change using iPads (Immersion Group). Another fourteen students (Control Group) remained in Dunedin and also produced videos about climate change. Both groups had equal access to equipment, tutoring, incentives and footage. Yet, students in the Immersion Group were more likely to complete videos and produced videos of a higher quality. While there were no differences between the two groups in their attitudes to science before the experiment, afterwards the Immersion Group students had significantly more positive attitudes to doing science at school and beyond. The combination of environmental immersion and mobile filmmaking substantially increased interest in the environment and climate change, suggesting that it offers a promising tool for science education.

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

INTERDISCIP J ENV SCI ED, 2021, Volume 17, Issue 1, Article No: e2228

https://doi.org/10.29333/ijese/9155

Publication date: 11 Nov 2020

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Article Downloads: 964

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