Everything’s Gone Green

The use of a green screen is a great way to immerse your students or you (literally) into a topic or situation. You have surely seen green screens in action when you have watched the weather report on your favorite news channel or blockbuster Hollywood movies where the scenery was not of this world or physically impossible to do. In education, the use of a green screen can provide an engaging and fun way to for students to demonstrate their understanding of a topic. For example, how do neurons in the brain work? What about describing the tactics of the D-day invasion? It can also give them the opportunity to let their creativity soar by using a variety of backgrounds to help tell a story in a way they wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

Green screening can be done in a variety of ways. The quickest and easiest way is is the with the iOS app Green Screen by Do Ink. We have this app available on our new Padcaster set up that is available to use in the HS. It can also be done in iMovie. In either instance, you do need a green screen background.

Recently, in Gil Legazpi’s Grade 9 Biology classes, Gil had his students do a formative learning activity using a green screen. The learning task was to explain the genetics involved in the transmission of a rare disease by pedigree. Prior to the filming process, students developed their understanding of the genetic transmission process in this context, and then prepared a brief script for what they would say. When they were ready, Gil sent them to me in the makeshift studio I set up in the Teachers’ Workroom. The students then filmed a few different clips, using the green screen, with images related to the assignment. After filming, the clips were air-dropped to a student’s laptop where they put them together into a final video in iMovie.

Be sure to watch the video above for full details about green screening, including student feedback on using the green screen for a learning activity.