I-Movie Presentations

Today and last Monday, each group showed their I-Movie presentations to the class and we held discussions about them.  My group chose to go first last week in class.  I felt that it went very well.  We experienced no  technical difficulties, and the class seemed genuinely interested in our presentation.   Our movie generated lots of questions, and there was some good resulting discussion concerning the costs and benefits of taking more time to integrate nature into today's educational experience.  The I-Movie assignment didn't come with many guidelines, but we were instructed that our main purpose with this presentation was to be as creative as possible.  Because of this, my group chose to take a sort of different approach to this assignment.  Instead of just having us talk in front of the camera or make up a skit, we chose to create a sort-of promotional video that would encourage the viewers to really think about the information presented.  This idea lent itself very well to our topic of nature-deficit disorder.  You can view our I-Movie by clicking here. 

As a group we read Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.  I highly enjoyed reading this book and it actually effected me quite a bit.  Being a child from a family who greatly appreciates the outdoors, the information presented in this book really moved and concerned me.  I found some of the statistics and stories fascinating because they show an entire generation of children who essentially don't know what the outdoors is, and don't respect nature's value in their lives. Reading this book really made me step back and think about my own childhood and the outdoor experiences I had in comparison to today's children.  Thinking about this fostered an even deeper gratitude and appreciation for nature than I already had.  I can't even imagine what my childhood would have been like without my love for the outdoors, which I can thank my parents for.  As this book illustrates over and over again, nature-deficit disorder is a huge concern and is growing everyday.  If parents, educators and the concerned citizens of our communities don't become aware of this situation and work to reverse it, we will be robbing future children of experiences that I believe are essential to our development as intelligent human beings. In this case, the consequences of NOT taking action are monumental.

This book and this project allowed me to really discover a passion of mine.  I hope to be able to take that, and the information I have learned, and incorporate it into my future classroom.  Hopefully I will be able to help to reverse the effects of nature-deficit disorder and inspire my students to value what nature has to give.