Creative Projects

Home Action Movies

Photo of girl writing on notebookBecome a film star or director! Make a "home movie." This movie should be a short (around one minute) action sequence that you will later analyze in terms of interactions, forces, and energy. You might show the movie and present the analysis during a class presentation, turn in the video with a written report to your teacher, or both turn in a written report and make a class presentation. See the Home Action Movie activity sheet (pdf).

Partners: This project is an ideal two-person effort. One person could film and direct while the other person acts. With your partner, you should collaborate on editing the film, analyzing the interactions, and making the presentation or writing the report.

If your action sequence requires more than one actor, ask members of your family or friends to help you out. If you ask classmates (other than your partner), make sure they understand that their participation is strictly for fun; they probably won't get any credit for being in your film unless they are full partners in your project. Make sure that you have your teacher's approval before you begin a video project.

If you (or your family) has a camcorder, consider teaming up with someone who does not have access to a camcorder. If you don't have a camcorder, try to team up with someone who does.

 

Stories and Comics

Tell a story for extra credit! You could write or illustrate:

  • a short story (with or without illustrations)
  • a comic book (a short story told in a series of cartoons with dialogue)
  • a cartoon (one or two panels) or comic strip (one page or less of panels)
  • a vignette (a short short story with a single scene, like a comic strip or a cartoon)

Photo of girl writing on notebook

See the Stories and Comics activity sheet. For longer stories or comics (the first two bullets), this project is perfect for two people, particularly a writer/artist pair.

For this assignment, you also need to do the following:

  • The short story or comic should include as many InterActions ideas as possible.
  • On the activity sheet, separate sheets, or in an appendix, you will need to:
    • Identify the interactions that occur in the story or comic. You will need to identify both the interacting objects and interaction types.
    • Draw force diagrams, energy diagrams or both for the interactions.
    • Describe the evidence of interactions. What are the observable changes?

Your story or comic could be:

  • Photo of girl writing on notebookAdditional "chapters" of Chronicles of the Wandering Star, or new stories or scenes involving the four young aliens (read about them and their home worlds first).
  • A story or comic involving members of the cast of the InterActions board game (read about them first).
  • A story or comic involving characters that you create.
  • A story or comic involving you, your family, or friends. Make sure you get their OK before writing about them!

Partners: This activity is an ideal two-person project, especially if you are doing a short story (rather than a short short story) or a comic book (rather than a cartoon or comic strip).  If you do work on this project with a partner, you will need to decide how to split up the work. Here are a few suggestions for a team of two:

  • Photo of girl writing on notebookFor an illustrated short story, one person could do the writing and the other person might draw the illustrations.
  • For a comic book, one person could draw while the other scripts, or each partner could draw ad script one-half of the comic book.
  • For a short story with no illustrations, the writing could be split up by sections of the story.

Feel free to find other ways to split up your work. Each partner should analyze about half the interactions in the story or comic, and should evaluate the analyses of the other half.

Make sure that you review and edit your work before handing it in!

 

New InterActions Trivia

Make up four to six new question and answer cards for the InterActions Game. If appropriate, add the cards to the games. The cards should conform to existing types:

  • Blue: Completing energy diagrams, force diagrams and other diagrams
  • Yellow: Identifying one or more interaction types
  • Red: Multiple choice questions, with 4 or 5 possible answers
  • Green: Open-ended, mathematical and multiple answer questions

Photo of girl writing on notebookSee the New InterActions Trivia activity sheet. Ask your teacher for a representative sample of cards from the game to give you some guidance for creating new cards. You can also use questions from the activities, practices and tests (quizzes and exams) for guidance.

Also, you need to indicate when new cards should be introduced into the game. This decision is based on the science that you include in your new card. For example, if you are asking a question about gravity, you should indicate that the card cannot be introduced until after the class has finished Unit 3 Cycle 2 (Gravitational Interactions). The earliest that you can introduce a card is after Unit 2 Cycle 1. Cards are only introduced at the end of a cycle, never in the middle of one.

When you create new cards, you may use members of the InterActions Game Cast. If you do so, use their character descriptions to guide both your choice of characters to use and your writing.

 

Other Creative Projects

Use your imagination for other creative projects that you could engage in. Here are a few ideas:

Riddles: Write riddles about InterActions ideas. For example:

Can't see me, can't touch me, 
Can't hear me nor smell me. 
But when I reach you, your 
temperature rises.

What am I?

 (Answer: Infrared radiation)

Give riddle-making a try! Note that you probably want to avoid being numerical in your riddle, and you can make comparisons. For example, a riddle about iron might say that it is more dense than aluminum without stating the actual density of iron.

Poetry: Write a poem that describes the defining properties of an interaction type, or uniquely describes a material or substance in terms of its characteristic properties (such as density and electrical conductivity), or one that addresses another idea introduced in InterActions.

Songwriting: Write an original song, or write new lyrics to an existing tune. For example, here is an example sung to the tune of Jingle Bells (you have to sing "mechanical" and "energy" very quickly):

Mechanical waves, mechanical waves,
Mechanical energy they convey,
Compression waves move back 'n forth
And transverse waves, up and down, hey!

An extra-credit project, of course, will need to be much longer than a single stanza!