Tag Archives: teaching

Can Plants Move?

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Here are a few videos that answer that question.  These are good examples of footage that one might use to illustrate plant “tropisms”.

The first video shows the rapid movement of a carnivorous plant, Drosera glanduligera (sundew), from Australia, captured with a high-speed camera.  The video is my compilation of footage posted online in the journal PLOSone with the article describing the phenomenon (access article here). This species has two types of tentacles, one with the sticky globules, which trap anything touching them, and non-sticky tentacles that fling insect passersby towards the center of the rosette where it gets stuck to sticky tentacles that then slowly pull the insect toward the area where it will be digested.  That flinging movement is one of the fastest trapping mechanisms found in the plant kingdom.  The speed is actually amazing when you think about it….this is a plant, not an animal with rapid-fire muscles.

For best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window).

By the way, I put together the video above in iMovie using the downloadable images and video footage offered on the open access article in the journal PLOSone.  All such images published there are under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which means that anyone can use them without permission as long as the creators (authors) are acknowledged.  This is a good example of how the scientist videographer can use published footage, images, and graphics to create a video about a science topic and without paying for or having to acquire the permission of the creators.

The second video is a time-lapse sequence showing Cuscuta reflexa (dodder) growing on another plant (Perlagonium sp.) in a phytotron in Norway.  This type of plant is a parasite on other plants and can actually insert root-like structures called “haustoria” into the host plant.  Once established and drawing resources from the host plant, the dodder’s roots growing in the soil eventually die, and the parasite then relies on its host for water and nutrients.  The sequence in this video was shot over 14 days with each second equaling about 40 minutes of growth.  Thanks to Joy Marburger for the link.

The last video is one based on footage I shot in Sri Lanka of a “sensitive plant” I came across in a parking lot.  Using that (admittedly shaky) footage plus some text explanation, I created a short video about seismonastic movement in plants.

It’s difficult sometimes to make sessile organisms such as plants interesting to the general public because, well, they don’t move or appear to do anything interesting.  However, the scientist videographer can use this fact to advantage and use footage that shows something unexpected, which as we’ve learned, is one feature of a video that appeals to viewers. Most people don’t expect plants to move, so videos about plant tropisms, which challenge that perception, can be quite effective.  Moreover, adding the question as to why plants might have evolved movement raises the viewer’s curiosity and perhaps stimulates them to learn more.

Another point I’d like to make here is that I was able to produce these videos in a very short time. The sensitive plant video took about five minutes to pull together and another five minutes or so to export and upload to YouTube.  The video on the carnivorous plant took somewhat longer (about 30 min), mainly because I had to read the paper to understand what the video footage and other images were demonstrating.

With a small effort, using your own or published (but public domain) images and video clips, you also can create short, informative videos.

How to Use NASA Multimedia in Your Science Videos

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The US space agency, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is a great resource for a variety of images and footage of the earth and its atmosphere, as well as various processes affecting them.  For example, their multimedia gallery of videos contains footage showing ocean currents, hurricanes, solar flares, temperature anomalies, time-lapse images shot from the space station, phytoplankton blooms, and much more.

Here are a few examples of videos in the NASA multimedia gallery that the scientist videographer might find useful for a video project:

Perpetual Ocean:

Solar Flare:

Hurricane Isaac transiting the Gulf of Mexico:

South America Fire Observations:

You can download these videos and because they are in the public domain can take segments from them for your video projects. For example, you might want to talk about the Gulf Stream and how this relates to something you are studying. You can easily download the video “Perpetual Ocean” (above) from the NASA video gallery and using a movie editing program, you can extract the footage that includes the Gulf Stream. Or you might want to talk about impacts of hurricanes on coastal habitats. There are several animations of hurricanes and cyclones as well as footage shot by NASA’s hurricane hunters that can be downloaded and used. Once in your movie editing program, you can then add voiceover and/or text to connect it to your topic.

Below is an example from one of my video projects in which I used two NASA animations together with my own images, footage, and voiceover to introduce a video on sea-level rise and wetlands.

CSI Meets The Abyss

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What happens when you put a pig carcass at the bottom of the ocean?  If you’ve ever wondered, check out this video created by Jackson Chu.  As you may know, pigs are used in forensic research as models for humans and in this study are helping scientists understand what happens to bodies that end up in the ocean.  The video is a time-lapse of the consumption and decay of the pig over several days.

The video by Chu is mainly the raw footage with a minimal text description marking the passage of time.  With a little effort, it could have been turned into a really nice video explaining the process of decay and how the work will aid criminologists.

A time-lapse also can be created with graphics, as in this next video showing all 2,053 nuclear explosions since 1945 on a world map:

Not all time-lapse deals with destruction, death and decay.  Here is one that shows the changes of a single oak tree over the course of a year:

One of the most entertaining types of science video involves time-lapse.  If you study a process that lends itself to time-lapse photography, you might want to consider using this approach for one of your videos.  Besides providing important information about change, it makes for fascinating viewing.

Domino Theory

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As I’ve been trying to emphasize in past posts, visual story-telling using a good dramatic question can be a powerful way to spread sound science ideas to a diverse audience.  Here’s a video that is highly effective in getting across the concept of the “domino effect in nature”.  It was made by graduate student, Megan Callahan, who used simple props (dominoes) to create a compelling video:

The video was made during a workshop held by Randy Olson, scientist turned filmmaker (more about the workshop here).  Let’s apply my features of a good video and see how this one does:

1. The video is short.  Imagine a scientist getting across an abstract concept….by talking.  This video does it in one minute, with minimal talking.

2. The information is presented visually as well as verbally.  Yes.  Even without the beginning dialog between the two women, the point of the video is clear.

3. The video keeps adding information at a steady but rapid pace.  Yes.  In this case, the video uses falling dominoes in different habitats to move the story forward.

4. There is constant motion going on throughout the video. Yes, the falling dominoes and cuts from one scene to the next create the impression of constant motion.

5. Colors are intense and dramatic.  Not so obvious because the colors are those of nature.  The video could have used a few close-ups of the images on the dominoes with dramatic colors (of a butterfly or flower, for example).

6. The text is minimal; only what is essential to understanding the message.  Yes, a brief text segment at the end poses the key questions.

7. There is a dream-like quality about the video.  No.

8. The video elicits an emotional reaction in the viewer, largely driven by the music, which  is compelling and carefully keyed to the visual shifts.  The music (mostly bongos) adds to the feeling of movement or motion, which along with the sounds of the falling dominoes, creates a mood.

9. All visual and audio components are rendered to the highest quality possible.  Yes.

10. The video has people, animals, or cartoon characters that are doing something interesting, unusual, or surprising.  In this case, the falling dominoes with attached images representing species are a surprising element.

11. There is an element of suspense.  Yes.  Where will the dominoes end up?

12. There is no traditional beginning, middle, and end.  In this case, there is:  the opening scene with the two women, the falling dominoes, the ending text sequence.  However, it’s not really that obvious.

So this video clearly adheres to most of the elements I’ve identified as being important to creating an effective message.  Let me hasten to add that these are not the only features that characterize an effective video.  There may be some that break the rules (and these, I’m guessing, will be highly effective).  The point is that there are some common attributes that the scientist videographer can keep in mind when planning a video project.

Use your imagination, as Megan did, and create something memorable.  In this case, she took the name of the scientific idea (domino effect) and used it to develop a visual aid that reinforced the concept.  She went a step further and attached pictures of organisms to the dominoes, which drove home the point that each domino represented a species.  By putting the questioning woman’s picture on the last domino, Megan emphasized that humans are part of nature’s interconnectedness.

Many other scientific concepts lend themselves to such visual storytelling.  We just have to be creative in finding ways to tell those stories.

A final point about Megan’s video:  it did not require an expensive film crew, elaborate stage settings, exotic shooting locations, or a huge budget to create.  The students had NO prior experience with film making.  I’m not sure what equipment they used to capture the footage, but it would have been possible to shoot it with a smartphone.  The students did their own acting.  The only prop was a package of dominoes.  Their “shooting locations” for nature scenes were different habitats in their region, apparently close by and easily accessible.  This is a great example of how someone using minimal equipment and visual aids can create a compelling audiovisual message.

Are Your Science Videos Understandable by a Diverse Audience?

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Scientists sometimes have difficulty explaining their work in everyday language that most people can understand.  How do you know if the language you are using in your videos or other science communication products are comprehensible by a 10th grader, for example?

Most word processing programs have an option that allows an assessment of the “readability” of the text in a document.  The science videographer can make use of this tool to check and modify the language you plan to use in your video project….essentially tailor it to a target audience.  This tutorial shows how to turn this option on and how to use it to revise a technical explanation so that it is understandable by a broader audience (for best viewing, select the HD version and full-screen options (see menu bar at bottom of player window):

View or download the entire script for the video here (click the arrow at the top of the document window for full page view):

Download (PDF, 32KB)