This past week I finished working on the CHANCE project. This project was pretty challenging partially due to working with previously created modules, creating new ones, and making numerous changes. It's always a challenge when you need to change someone else's code. Combine that with the way they decided to do their animations and you're in for some real frustration. Also, the previously-created modules were all done in Actionscript 2.0 and for the past year I've been working in AS 3.0 just to try and get the hang of it. I figured it was like the metric system. The only way to learn it is to keep using it. Aside from all that, some of the activities were just plain challenging to conceptualize and create. Anyway, I thought I'd deep link into the CHANCE project to pull out a few of the modules I created or helped create.
Most recently, I created a module that features Hawk Mountain, a raptor sanctuary near Hamburg, PA. In this module I received some photos from the sanctuary that I used as well as some I found that were in the public domai. Instead of a slide show, I was able to add some motion to the photos by cutting out certain parts and making them move in Flash. For example, in one I actually separated the sky from the landscape to make the sky slowly move across the screen. It gives the illusion that the clouds are being blown across the sky. In another one, the people in the photo move ever so slightly, and in another the hawk was cut out and copied to make several over a moving sky. After the slide show, the student is asked to gather data from 8 years of bald eagle counts and plot the data on a graph. It is then analyzed. One part of the graphing activity I really liked was that I was able to create crosshairs for the students to more accurately place the data points on the graph. Check it out here:
Hawk Mountain Raptor Module
Another module was the one I previously wrote about with Dr. Richard Alley and the ice coring activity. You can review the finished product here:
Dr. Richard Alley's PresentationThat one was fun to put together (at least the video part). The rest of it got kind of out of hand since it ended up being a lot larger than we originally anticipated. Zac Zidik did a great job of putting the activity portion together. Zac also reworked the first section on the layers of the earth. He put quite the professional touch on this activity.
Layers of the Earth
Another module was the activity where the students will measure tree diameters in Costa Rica. It starts out with a little geography to give students an idea where the
La Selva Biological Research Station is located. I then use a combination of still photos with animated effects to bring the students up to speed on research taking place in the rainforests. Using sort of a Ken Burns effect, I gently scrolled a large photo of the rainforest and animated some fog over the image to make it come alive a little more. For the activity, I had to come up with a way for them to take readings of individual trees over a 16 year span from 1985-2000. A pair of hands is animated to show the tape measurement for each year, and the students read and record each measurement to a table. They will then take that table and plot the data to a graph and analyze the results. This is another one that got a little crazy with detail and complexity, but the end result, I think will work well. La Selva Biological Research Station
I also reworked a few animations in the other modules, but for the most part was just adding or editing what was already done. Some of this proved to be quite complicated as I was dealing with someone else's code and their method of doing animation. Some of it was overly complex for what was being displayed and in at least one case I had to break the code that was there to make the necessary changes to the timeline.
The CHANCE project was a very valuable learning experience for me and in the end I was glad to have been able to put my own touch on it. I hope it sees much success. Now I need to gear up for some new challenges.
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