Lower School

Visit Saturn! Third Graders Create Planet Commercials

Did you know that Saturn is called the “jewel planet” and that you can see it during the day and night? Third graders Berkley and Marin share this information and more in their lively planet commercial. This year, the third grade solar system unit became a multimedia project incorporating STEAM - science, technology, engineering, art and math. View the commercial.
 
“We intentionally created the planet project to incorporate many facets of student learning. With the help of Lower School Librarian Jean Stevens and Director of Innovation Aron Back we were able to make this unit cross-curricular, while also covering all aspects of STEAM,” said Lower School Science Assistant Teacher Timber Pech, who designed the unit. Spanish Teacher Sean Robb extended the planet unit into Spanish classes as well.

Students worked in pairs to research one planet in depth in order to complete a report. They learned planet statistics, such as temperature, the number of moons and rings, radius, size comparison to earth, length of day and year in earth time and weight difference because of gravity. They also designed a space suit adapted to be used on their planet.

Using all the information they gathered, the students created commercials of their planets using iPads, a green screen and the DoInk app.

“We had to think of fun ways of saying what we learned to convince others to come visit our planet,” said Berkley.

“I was nervous in front of the camera,” said Marin. “It took a few times for us to get it right.”

Finally, the students made large paintings of their planets with QR codes that play the corresponding commercial. The paintings are displayed throughout campus.

“If I had the correct spacesuit, I would like to visit Saturn,” said Marin. “It would take three years, though.”

3-Giacalone is displayed in Lower School, 3-Schirmer is displayed in Middle School, and 3-Speck is displayed in Thacher. Next to the paintings is an iPad to scan the attached QR code. You may also use your phone camera to scan the QR code and play the video.
 
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