Submitted by: Melissa Portella
Collaborators: Lauren Mabry, Rebecca Hardin, Kristie Tanner
School: John Rolfe Middle School
Summary
To encourage student participation and engagement at our school Health Fair, students work together to create Public Service Announcements (PSAs) on important health issues in our community. The students conduct research, design, script, and film with teacher/librarian supervision. Then, the PSAs were presented at our Health Fair, where students share their knowledge with members of the community and discuss those issues with health professionals.
TIPC Ratings
Approaching: In this lesson, students use the most appropriate digital tools and other resources provided by our librarians to gather the information for their PSAs. Teacher/Librarians monitor their use of resources and students relate to prior knowledge, based on the health issues of members of their family. They apply the new knowledge to their lives and the lives of others – particularly when they present this to their peers and community at the Health Fair.
Approaching: Students work in groups, with each member contributing to a role and equally to the final product. Because they share their final product with peers and members of the community, they share knowledge and act as agents of change to those in their sphere of influence. All the PSAs are on important health issues, so their information provides authentic solutions for community-related problems.
Approaching: Students have a variety of resources to choose from to gather information for their PSA. They decide which medium is best for their movie—filming with the flip cams, creating a presentation using Power Point, or other options that accomplish the goal of making an engaging public service announcement. They analyze and reflect on their product many times to see if they accomplish their goal of educating their community on their health topic. Although following a guideline of questions, they come up with their own open-ended questions as they discover more on their topic.
Approaching: Since students make PSAs and Glogs from scratch, it requires them to be creative with their scripting and graphics. They work together to develop a product that informs others on an important health topic in a fun, education way. Peers and members of the community enjoy hearing information on these health topics from the students, as they use terminology familiar to them and easy to comprehend – which make their presentations that much more effective with their audience.
