Challenge B: Videos

Challenge B: Videos

October 23, 2025

Isaac Clements, Emily Morrow, Hanna White

This project is a group endeavour into educational video creation. Isaac is in the Elementary Education field. Emily is a student pursuing her English degree and hoping to become a teacher. Hanna is pursuing her Health Information Science degree . This team was inspired to figure out how to create videos that engaged young students. We all hope to gain better media literacy after engaging with the tools needed for this task. As well, a deeper understanding of design principles and how best to apply them in educational scenarios is something we hope to gain from this project.

Isaac’s Video

Emily’s Video

Hanna’s video

Understand 

Describe the challenge 

The purpose of the videos is to engage elementary and middle school students in the exploration of fundamental concepts in science through hands-on activities and visual explanations. By connecting these videos to real world examples, it will deepen students’ understanding and help foster an interest in science. 

Context and audience

The focus audience for the videos are elementary and middle school students in grades 2 to 8 (ages 7 to 14). In extreme cases these videos could be adapted to fit high school or university students as they explore the complexities of science. Students in elementary school have short attention spans; therefore, the short form videos are perfect for teaching content while maintaining their concentration. Looking at various resources, the consensus is that students’ attention spans are equivalent to two to five minutes plus their age. For example, a student in grade 2 is seven or eight years old, so their attention spans will typically be between 9-14 minutes.

For elementary and middle school students, their needs are to be able to understand content in a clear step-by-step manner that is easy to follow and replicate. The goals for the videos are to give students an explanation of scientific content while providing a “how-to” description or engaging format of different scientific processes. Through this style of content, motivation derives from students’ intrigue towards hands-on learning, the ability to see quick progress and results and the experience of lighthearted academic content.  

Demographic

Modern elementary and middle school classrooms are highly diverse with many English Language Learners (ELL). Although the videos contain spoken English at a relatively fast pace, the pictorial element helps students see what is being made and allows them to make connections between audio and visual, which in turn builds English vocabulary. As well, if the videos are added to YouTube, students can add subtitles in their native language, again aiding in the association of words and pictures. Since the video is short in content, it is important to consider the complexity of the language being used, in order to fit the specific students based on their age and comprehension levels. 

Psychographic/Behavioural

Elementary and middle school students often thrive through sensory rich learning that uses low risk experimentation. Unlike the more traditional lecture style learning where many students quickly become disengaged, active participation in experiments leads to curiosity and excitement about learning and wanting to be at school. With an increasing number of cellphones globally, middle school students are consuming progressively more content through social media apps, such as Instagram and TikTok, which focus almost exclusively on short form content. This trend has contributed to the decreasing attention spans of many learners. By presenting Science projects and content through engaging videos, students become interested in what they are learning. 

POV statement

By transforming traditional science lessons into short, interactive experiments, such as exploring gravity, capillary action in plants, and contact and non-contact forces through quick, step-by-step videos, students are more likely to stay focused and engaged in their learning and become better connected with scientific ideas. 

Learning objectives

Isaac’s Video: 

• Elementary school students will be able to visualize the scientific principle of force and understand the difference between contact and non-contact forces. 

Emily’s video:

• Elementary or middle school students will be able to easily understand the concept of gravity and present thoughtful examples regarding the force. 

Hanna’s video:

• Middle school students will be able to visualize and understand the process of capillary action. 

Sub-learning objectives

• Promoting a love for science and the excitement that can happen in a classroom. 
• Understand important scientific vocabulary related to forces and chemical changes. 
• Understand and practice following the exact steps in an experiment and yielding results. 
• Start engaging with critical thinking around scientific principles and experiments.

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Plan (Ideate, Sketch, Elaborate)

Ideation

As we discussed our project, we went through many phases of decision making. First, we had to decide what aspect of information we wanted to address. We did this based on what was interesting to us. We are all interested in educating young individuals in a fun and engaging way and making learning exciting. This brought us to the idea that we should look at fun experiments that we used to do that had a positive impact on our learning in elementary and middle school. We brainstormed about English (or language arts) projects, but found the ideas we came up with (how to write a compelling essay, proper sentence structure, and punctuation placement) didn’t spark inspiration in us and could potentially be better taught through other forms of media. Next, we assessed our experiences with science projects. This brought back strong memories of exciting science experiments we had witnessed. As young students, perhaps the most exciting day of the whole year was when we got to watch a baking soda and vinegar volcano explode. Clearly these experiments had lasting impacts on us and helped us retain the information we were taught. We decided we wanted to try to encapsulate that excitement into videos as an equally effective tool for learning. 

The most fruitful idea we could come up with that would increase the interest in an informational video was to add a “how-to” component. A follow along tutorial that leads to an exciting experiment would connect the students to the content in a hands-on scenario therefore increasing memory retention and learning. We looked at the BC curriculum and picked out three separate ideas and created videos that contained real life experience through the form of experiments and educational demonstrations. 

The goal of these prototypes is to see how engaged the viewers are in the content we are presenting. We hope the short form and dynamic quality of the videos will maintain the attention of the students or viewers. We also hope that the intrigue of the videos will leave a lasting impression in the memory of the students. 

Promising prototype

Other promising prototypes we attempted included simple educational videos regarding contact and non-contact forces, gravity, and capillary action. While these were good ideas and we liked our topics, they seemed to lack the excitement we were hoping to incorporate. To make our videos more exciting, we decided to create how-to and educational demonstration videos to help show our topics in a fun and engaging way. 

Storyboard

Isaac: 

Concept: Contact vs. non-forces. This video will be used to show how to build a basic toy car and a few examples of how it can be moved using contact and non-contact forces. 

1. Visual: Start with a brief rundown of the different materials needed to make the cars.

Audio: For this STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) project we will need 1 large popsicle stick, 1 straw, 2 toothpicks, 4 cardboard wheels, 2 pieces of tape and scissors. 

2. Visual: Putting the materials off to the side and starting to cut the straw. 

Audio: Now that we have all of our materials, we will start by cutting our straw into two 4cm pieces. 

3. Visual: The straws will be taped to one side of the popsicle stick. 

Audio: We are now going to grab our tape and popsicle stick. Place the small pieces of straw on either end of the straw and use the tape to secure them. 

4. Visual: Place toothpicks through the straw

Audio: Next, grab your two toothpicks and place one through each of the pieces of straw. 

5. Visual: Attach two wheels to each of the toothpicks

Audio: Lastly, get each of the four wheels and attach two wheels to either side of the toothpicks. 

6. Visual: Car rolling

Audio: Car complete!

7. Visual: Car moving by pushing it with a stick.

Audio: As we know from class, a contact force happens when two objects are in direct physical contact with each other. For example, pushing our car with a stick. 

8. Visual: Car moving with the air from a balloon.

Audio: As we also know from class, a non-contact force happens when an object moves without direct physical contact. For example, pushing a car with the air from a balloon.  

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Emily: 

Concept: Give a surface level explanation of gravity for young students who are encountering it for the first time. Utilize lots of examples and images to really make them think about how it is present in their lives. 

Script: “Have you ever wondered how every time we jump, we seem to land right back on the ground? Or how the water in our cup stays there instead of floating off into the sky?”

Visual: Start with the words ‘have you ever wondered…’ then pan to a person standing on the ground. Move from the drawing of a person to a drawing of water in a cup. 

Script: “Well, that’s because of something called Gravity.”

Visual: A white board with just the word gravity on it.  

Script: “Gravity is a force that pulls things toward the center of the Earth.”

Visual: the words ‘Gravity is a force’ and then pan to a target with an arrow in the center.

Script: “It is what keeps our food on our dinner plates. The water in the ocean. And stops our hair from standing upright on our heads.”

Visual: Show a drawing of food on a plate. Pan up to an image of the ocean then over to a picture of a person with long hair. 

Script: “Gravity is also what makes things fall down.”

Visual: Simple downward pointing arrow.

Script: “Think of rain clouds and the rain falling to the ground instead of the sky.”

Visual: A cloud with water droplets falling from it to the ground. 

Script: “Gravity is also what keeps the planets in orbit around the sun.”

Visual: A simple drawing of planets orbiting the sun. 

Script: “Here are some examples of gravity.”

Visual: Bold word ‘Examples’ across the screen. 

Script: “Waterfalls with the water rushing. Catching a baseball that’s been thrown across a field.”

Visual: Image of a waterfall then pan to a sports player catching a baseball. 

Script: “Even apples have gravity acting on them when they fall from trees.”

Visual: Simple drawing of an apple.

Script: “Gravity is present 100% of the time.”

Visual: Numerical drawing of ‘100%’.

Script: “What goes up, must come down!”

Visual: Arrows pointing both up and down then a pan out to view the whole map that was drawn. 

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Hanna: 

Concept: How plants absorb water through their stems (Capillary action)
Explanation: For my video, I will be doing the flower-colouring experiment to help elementary school students understand in a fun and engaging way how the food colour moves up the stem of the flower through tiny tubes called xylem tubes. Called capillary action, when water can move up, against gravity, into the petals. Changing the colour of the flower. Storyboard:
Title: How Do Flowers Drink Water?

1. Visual: background with text “How Do Flowers Drink Water? My Script: Have you ever wondered how plants stay alive? How does water travel all the way from the roots up to the flower petals?	2.Visual: A small bouquet of carnations.  My Script: Let’s see how flowers “drink” water by doing a simple science experiment you can try at home!	3.Visual: Show the materials needed all laid out: carnations, cups of water, food colouring bottles, and scissors. My Script: Text on screen: Here’s what you’ll need:
4.Visual: Show all the different food colouring in the cups of water: red, blue, green, and yellow. Script: Fill each cup about half full of water (be generous with food colouring for each cup).	5. Visual: Cut the flower stems at an angle and place one into the different coloured cups of water. Script: Cutting the bottom of your flower stems at an angle helps absorb more water. The flower stem has little tubes that suck up water like sipping through a straw, carrying the colour to the petals.	6. Visual: Time-lapse: The colour slowly creeps up the stem and into the petals (will speed this up and add music in the background). Script: Now, we wait! Over the next several hours, the petals begin to change colour. “It looks like magic when it’s sped up like this, but it’s really science!”
7. Visual: Results! Showing all the different coloured flowers arranged together.Script: Each petal shows the path the coloured water took through the stem of the flower to the petal.	8.Visual: Show a close-up of petals. (slow mo) Script: This experiment shows that even though we can’t see water move inside a plant, it’s happening all the time! This is called capillary action	9. Optional: In case the video needs to be longer, mix the food colours.Visual: text on screen: “Try this: Mix two colours and see what happens!”  Script: What do you think will happen when you mix red and blue together in the same flower?

Principles applied:

The principles applied were Dual Coding Theory, Active Processing, the Coherence Principle, Segmenting, the Modality Principle, the Personalization Principle, and the Voice Principle. 

• Dual coding theory: Since our brains are broken into two parts, one for words and one for visuals, creating videos with spoken language while demonstrating a task will help students better comprehend the material. Both of these components together contribute to a message being portrayed.
• Active processing: Since all of the lessons give a brief about scientific content prior to the experiment. The students watching the videos have to use their prior knowledge and sort it into what they know and what they are still learning. 
• Coherence principle: Since the videos are short, it is important to focus on the key concept: Remove extra words, sounds, and unnecessary images that could distract from the main ideas. This helps students stay focused and retain the key information. 
• Segmenting principle: Each video, only being one minute long, is carefully broken down into small, manageable steps that still make sense of the complete process. This helps students follow along easily and understand each part before moving on.
• Modality principle: Key information is explained out loud while being demonstrated visually. Helping students understand and better remember the material. Seeing and hearing the steps together makes the lesson easier to follow. 
• Personalization principle: Using friendly narration and conversational language helps students to feel more connected to the material and encourages them to stay interested in the lesson. 
• Voice principle: Students better understand information when it’s spoken in a friendly human voice rather than a robotic one. This makes the content easier to follow and keeps them more engaged. 

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Peer Feedback

From our peers, we received plenty of helpful feedback. They highlighted how our group thoughtfully connected hands-on experiments with clear learning goals and how the videos teach about science in a simple yet fun way. Our peers also appreciated our connection and application of Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning, especially our use of the Segmenting Principle by breaking the experiments into clear step-by-step instructions. One small suggestion was to add more signalling to better highlight the key ideas for learners. Our peers expressed enthusiasm towards the gravity and capillary action storyboards, since they get students excited about learning. The formatting was seen as age appropriate and they liked how we used the Personalization and Voice Principles to make the tone feel friendly and engaging for younger learners. A common suggestion that all three of us received for the final submission was to slow down the pacing of our videos so younger students have more time to process the information.  

Looking at our second peer reflections, they emphasized that the chosen topics are highly relatable for younger students and they align well with foundational science concepts. They highlighted our group’s consideration for accessibility and inclusivity for diverse learners, as well as our connection of our learning objectives to the curriculum. They also liked how we used Mayer’s learning principles, specifically the Dual Coding and Modality Principles by combining narration with visuals. Our peers suggested adjusting the tone and pace of each video to better match the age group, such as using slower narration for younger students. Another recommendation was to incorporate reflection questions or a prediction activity to promote active thinking and deepen learning. Overall, the feedback was positive with good connections to course concepts and effective teaching strategies.

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Reflect and Refine

What worked well?

One of the key strengths of our project was our consistent collaboration within our group. Through active and ongoing communication, we were able to develop strong ideas to create a coherent project that we were all interested in. We made strong connections to learning goals within science and aligned them to the BC provincial curriculum. By using hands-on experiments and interactive videos, we ensured that the learning experience would be engaging for elementary students. The science topics that we chose are not only relevant to younger learners, but they are foundational topics that students will continue to develop throughout their schooling. The content that we created was presented in a simple and engaging way and it effectively connected to Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning with a focus on the modality (key information is explained out loud while being demonstrated visually) and segmenting (videos are carefully broken down into small, manageable steps) principles to help with understanding. 

What would you change?

As a group, something we struggled with was figuring out how to make the videos applicable to a wide range of students. We wanted to create fun and fast paced videos to keep students engaged, while also acknowledging that this format may not be ideal for all learners, particularly those experiencing the content for the first time. Perhaps it could have been interesting to make multiple videos on the same topic, but gear them toward more refined and specific age groups. 

Another thing that could have benefited our videos was to increase their length. While we understand this was part of the challenge of the task, in a classroom setting, it may be more beneficial to create longer videos that include a deeper analysis of the topic. For example, instead of simply presenting an experiment regarding force, it could be more beneficial to explain the concept within the same video with the intent of keeping the context fresh in a student’s mind before moving into the experiment. 

What revisions were included in your revised prototypes?

A main revision that happened was in Emily’s video about gravity. At first she had wanted to include a short summary about gravity, follow with the instructions for the experiment, and summarize with reflection questions. This was not in the scope of the length allotted for the videos and was also out of Emily’s knowledge on how to use media editing tools. It was a process of acknowledging her level of understanding of media, finding a way that worked to accommodate that and still challenge her, and also refining the video into something digestible within one minute. She decided to approach the final version as simply an explanation about gravity as opposed to both aspects. This allowed her to explore theories of design and multimedia principles without overwhelming her learning capacity by trying to create an overly complex video for a beginner. 

From the revised prototype, Isaac tried incorporating prompting questions into his video, asking “what is a contact and non-contact force?”. This allowed the viewer to pause the video, talk to a partner and think about the question before hearing the explanation and seeing an example. These short prompts help increase the active processing as the viewer is purposefully engaging with the information. From peer feedback, Isaac also attempted to slow down the pace of his explanation, which resulted in the video running slightly longer than one minute. Additionally, the use of the balloon to move the car will appeal to older students, as it not only reinforces the concepts of contact and non-contact forces, but also  keeps the project playful and fun. 

Hanna included several revisions to her prototype based on her feedback and own reflection. She had originally planned to include a timelapse into her video, but she changed her mind after realizing it didn’t make sense for our group’s project topic. She then shifted her focus to ensure that the experiment was both educational while still being easy to follow for younger students. Hanna had to cut some of her original ideas to make sure that the students understood the main concepts without making them feel rushed or overwhelmed. She chose to create her final video in a TikTok-style format to keep it short, engaging, and relatable for elementary and middle school students. This helped the video stay within the one minute time frame, while also making sure that the pace was engaging for students with shorter attention spans. 

What issues were raised and how did you address them? 

A few issues were raised during the development of our project. For starters, maintaining consistency throughout the different sections. Although we worked well as a group we needed to regularly check in to ensure that our individual portions followed a similar theme and had cohesive ideas. Since the project had many different parts, it was easy to become focused on the individual sections instead of the project as a whole. To address this, we used our group chat for ongoing communication, asking questions and sharing feedback to step back and consider the purpose of the project. This helped us focus on our goal of creating videos that help students develop a love for science in a fun and engaging way. Another issue we struggled with early on was deciding on a subject area to focus on. We explored language arts and its conventions; however, we decided that it lacked the content to fully engage students. One group member mentioned the impact they had with educational science videos like Bill Nye the Science Guy, and for that reason, we shifted our focus. Using our positive experiences from elementary and middle school, we decided to incorporate a “how-to” tutorial element to help with understanding and engagement for younger learners. 

What did you find to be strengths and limitations to this type of multimedia learning? Connect your responses to the academic literature.  

According to an academic article from ScienceDirect, short-form videos are highly engaging for viewers, especially younger learners. One of the biggest strengths of this type of multimedia learning is how it holds attention, which is very important for elementary and middle school students who usually have shorter attention spans. Videos are an effective way to share information in a quick and simple manner, which helps to avoid cognitive overload and feeling overwhelmed by too much information at once. This connects to Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning, which includes the Modality and Segmenting Principles. The Modality Principle means that people learn better when information is both shown and explained out loud, rather than just reading text on a screen. Our videos combine visuals of the experiments with voice-over explanations. For students in elementary and middle school hearing the steps while seeing them happen makes it easier to understand and retain the information. It also keeps their attention since they don’t have to read chunks of text on a screen. The Segmenting Principle is about breaking information into smaller, easy-to-follow steps, instead of giving it all at once. We tried to do this by keeping the videos short and showing each step clearly before moving on to the next. Both of these principles work really well with younger learners. ScienceDirect also points out a limitation, which is that short-form videos can sometimes oversimplify the topic. Since the videos are so short, there isn’t always enough time to go into deeper detail or fully explain complex ideas, making it harder for students to build a deeper understanding of the concept. 

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Individual Reflections:

Isaac:

Overall, I am very happy with the effort from our group and the result of our project. I think we worked well together from the brainstorming stage to the end result. Everyone in the group was open to criticism and happy to provide feedback to others to improve their work. Emily opened up the conversation by getting the group together and making a chat so we could all connect about the project. I made the suggestion for creating videos related to science projects, while both Hanna and Emily related it back to their experience in elementary school watching videos like Bill Nye the Science Guy. I started the project by describing the challenge, adding the context and audience and connecting the learning objectives to the curriculum. Emily made the POV statement and helped fine tune the learning and sub learning objectives to put them into a full format. Emily took the lead on the ideation section, while accurately describing our thought process and how we came to decide on science as our topic. Hanna helped refine the project by editing what Emily and I wrote to make it more condensed and read fluently. For the prototypes, we all took an active role in discussing topics but ultimately all came up with our own ideas that relate back to making science fun and engaging. We all respectively summarized our comments and discussed in our group chat how we could make our project better. For the next project, it would be beneficial to divide up the work at the beginning so that everyone has a clear idea of the roles and responsibilities. Doing this makes the process more straightforward and helps avoid overlaps or multiple people working on the same sections. Overall, we all actively participated in group discussions, ensuring our work aligned with the learning goals and curriculum. Everyone stayed positive throughout the project, and our group worked very well together.  

Emily:

This project was really challenging for me, but forced me to grow in many ways. The main aspect of the project, the video, is not something I was comfortable with at all. I am not used to using technology in this way so it was a big struggle for me figuring it out. I think I also found it frustrating that I had a vision for the video I wanted to create, but when it came to using the tools to create that, I was falling short. While I think I did make some solid improvements, I definitely see room for growth. I would like to be more comfortable using this type of media in teaching settings as I always find videos so effective in learning. This is based both on my memory of being a child and being excited to watch videos in class and remembering more content when presented that way as well as being based on my experience as a dance teacher currently. Something I really valued was my team’s encouragement and guidance throughout. While we were all learning about media in some way, it helped to be able to offer our strengths to each other while asking for help with our weaknesses. Hanna was a strong teammate and very involved in paring down brainstorm ideas and coming up with our final topics. She worked hard and engaged with the project well. Hanna was a really strong communicator, which made it very efficient and easy to be in a group with her. Isaac was super helpful in many ways and was a strong leader for us. He was positive and able to offer solid feedback to any ideas posed in our group chat. He engaged with a lot of the written work for this project and helped keep the team on track. I think overall we worked well together and created a product we are all proud of. Our strengths came together in a cohesive way and allowed for our weaknesses to be compensated for. 

Hanna:

Working with Emily and Isaac on this project was such a positive experience. Emily was incredibly encouraging and always ready to jump in and help whenever we needed support or advice. Her positive attitude really kept our group motivated. Isaac took on more of a leadership role, helping us brainstorm ideas, keeping us organized, and offering really helpful advice. He always knew exactly what needed to be done and was great at explaining his ideas for this project. As for me, I found it challenging at times to connect the learning principles directly to my video. Since science was always one of my favourite subjects in school, I really wanted to base my video idea on an experiment that I remembered doing when I was in school. The food-colouring flower experiment was really memorable to me. At first, I was struggling with the concept of STEAM projects. I really had to push myself to better understand the principles and make sure my idea actually connected to our group’s overall project, but it forced me to think more critically about how to make learning engaging and valuable for students. There were also times I found myself feeling a little unsure about where I could best contribute because I was worried there might be overlap or I wasn’t sure who was working on what. I did my best to stay as involved and supportive as possible! Moving forward, I know I’d really appreciate it if we split up the work from the start. That way, we can all contribute equally and help avoid any confusion about what still needs to be done. It would also help me know exactly what to focus on and make the process feel a bit more organized for everyone. All things considered, I’m really proud of what we were all able to put together! Our teamwork, communication, and encouragement for each other made this process really fun. Overall, I genuinely enjoyed our project idea. I really tried to reflect that in my video by using a TikTok-style format that I thought would be more relatable for middle school students. 

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References: 

ASTC Science World Society (Ed.). (2022, June 10). Capillary action. Science World. https://www.scienceworld.ca/resource/capillary-action/  

British Columbia Ministry of Education & Child Care. (n.d.). Search BC’s course curriculum. Curriculum. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/  

BeardedScienceGuy. (2017). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTvwpAWdmd0  

Meng, L., Kou, S., Duan, S., & Bie, Y. (2024). Preparation of electrochemically active α-lifeo2 at low temperature – sciencedirect. The impact of content characteristics of Short-Form video ads on consumer purchase Behavior: Evidence from TikTok. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167273898003634 

Minshew, A. (2024, July 9). Maintain your students’ attention in class. Waterford.org. https://www.waterford.org/blog/student-attention-span/#:~:text=What%20Is%20the%20Average%20Attention,and%20better%20understand%20their%20needs.  

Science North (Ed.). (n.d.). Sciencenorth. Contact and Non-Contact Forces. https://www.sciencenorth.ca/sites/default/files/2020/June 9 Grade 3 Contact and Non-Contact Forces Offline ENG.pdf  

TED. (2024). How to Make Learning as Addictive as Social Media. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6FORpg0KVo