Bio1 - Genius Papers

The Assignment

(1) Pick a documentary that interest you. If you have seen any of these movies, then please try to pick one that you haven’t seen. The links below will take you to information about the movie, but you will NOT necessarily be able to view the movies from the links. You will have to acquire the movie on your own (which is why you have been given lots of time to complete the assignment). You may stream the movie on Netflix or Amazon (or other service), you can rent the movie, check it out from the public library, see if it exists at our SAC library, or buy it online or in a store – how you acquire and show the movie is entirely up to you.

(2) Watch the movie once or twice and come up with a series of five SHORT questions based on the documentary that you can pose to members of an audience. Your questions should be thoughtful. If your audience can give you just a “yes” or “no” response, then your question is not thoughtful enough. Get your audience to provide you with a sentence response – this is what you will document.

(3) Come up with an audience consisting of a minimum of three friends, family, neighbors, or acquaintances. Set a date and invite your audience over for some popcorn and snacks (or whatever). If for whatever reason you are unable to have a crowd at your house, you may show the documentary in multiple events, or even have your audience members watch the movie on their own and report back to you with their responses.

(4) Before you show your movie, pose your five questions to your audience and write down the responses from each of your audience members to each of your questions. This will help you gauge their prior level of knowledge of the topic covered in the documentary. Press your audience to give you MORE than just a one-word response. After the film is over, pose the same five questions (or some new variation of them). Based on their follow-up answers, have their opinions changed as a result of watching the documentary? Document any interesting discussion from your group.

_ Here is what you MUST hand in on time for full credit (50 points):

(5 points) Title of your movie and your audience members (first names are fine, or just mom, dad, sister, etc.) – your audience can be made up of friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances, etc. You must have a minimum of THREE (3) audience members.
(5 points) Five questions you developed from your initial viewing of the documentary.
(10 points) Responses BEFORE watching the movie from your audience members.
(10 points) Responses AFTER watching the movie from the same audience members.
(15 points) Summary paragraph describing how your audience responded to the documentary, how the experience of this assignment impacted you, and any other noteworthy things you would like to add.
(5 points) A digital photograph of your audience watching the movie. Note: the digital picture you upload must show your audience and the movie they are watching (a picture of three random people standing on the sidewalk is NOT acceptable).

_ Please arrange your assignment (using the rubric above) in the following way for full credit:

Movie Title
List of Audience Members
List of FIVE questions
Bulleted list of responses BEFORE showing the documentary, from each of your audience members (separated out, not combined) for each of your questions
Bulleted list of responses AFTER showing the documentary, from each of your audience members (separated out, not combined) for each of your questions
Summary paragraph – this must be a substantial reflection on the experience for your audience members AND you.
Include a verification photo to confirm that you met the requirements of the assignment. Please see the photo above for an example of an acceptable photo.

THE DOCUMENTARY LIST (choose one)

Biodiversity