Films can be a valuable addition to a teaching curriculum. There are many notable films from various distributors to teach science and technology concepts.
What are the benefits of screening educational documentaries in a science classroom?
With experts at your beck and call, documentary and instructional films can add a visual dimension lacking in still pictures from a textbook or website. Cinema can help students to see a scientific idea in context, watch a scientific principle realized in today’s world, follow illustrated examples of technical procedures and processes, and become familiar with three-dimensional models.
For visual learners, images can be engaging, help with retention, and serve as an additional way of learning. Through secondhand experience, students can see historical events and concepts in science brought to life with reenactments. With the movie industry’s focus on innovations in graphics and media, educators have a vast array of excellent films to consider for their classes and curriculum.
How can I find educational science documentaries to add to my library collection or classroom syllabus?
According to an article by Boying Liang and Jie Shen, films can “stimulate a student’s interest in learning with rich storylines, high-quality pictures, and entertaining nature." Liang and Shen recommend these four steps to discover what films to use:
- Determine the key points of the teaching content
- Choose matching films
- Set up topics and related questions
- Communicate and discuss after watching the film
Consult Video Librarian’s extensive database and start with these subject categories to locate reviews of educational science documentaries on the Discover Page at https://videolibrarian.com/discover:
- Animals
- Environment
- Biology
- Food
- Math
- Science
- Technology
These categories have reviews of films about plants, wildlife conservation, construction materials, space, nutrition, robotics, and more. Several reviews focus on climate change including global warming, sea level rise, fossil fuel alternatives, plastics, and solar energy.
The following films are appropriate for middle school, high school, and/or college and found in Video Librarian:
- Biology: The Science of Seeds introduces plant science for students and informs students of seed banks around the world.
- The Divided Brain discusses the brain's two hemispheres and how they function in complex ways.
- Earth examines large movements of the earth’s surface via land development, strip mining, tunneling, and more.
- Looking for the Wild: Unai’s Journey follows a wildlife photographer and his son to seven continents to film animals facing extinction or habitat loss.
- Ocean Cities: Exploring Our Connection to the Sea shows the challenges to sea level rise and illustrates innovative solutions for dealing with this problem.
- Three Ocean Advocates demonstrates how individuals can become citizen scientists.
- The Gene: An Intimate History, by Ken Burns, traces the history of the discovery of the genome and the subsequent medical advances using gene identification.
- Lions, Bones, and Bullets emphasizes wildlife conservation.
Watching such films may give students ideas for creating their own videos as well. There are several film distributors marketing science films: First Run Features, Pyramid Media, Screen Media, PBS-Nova, Bullfrog Films, Icarus Films, BBC, the National Film Board of Canada, CPB, Television Trust for the Environment, Kim Stim, TMW Media Group, and other independent filmmakers from around the world.
Educators have a tremendous resource using Video Librarian to locate suitable films for teaching science and technology.
Works Cited
Liang, Boying and Jie Shen, "Introduction of COVID-10 Knowledge Via Film Teaching Method," Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, v. 50, no. 1, p. 130-13, Jan-Feb, 2022. DOI: 10.1002/bmb21599.