Check out some examples of science animations that were created by grade 7 students with little to no coding experience!
Conduction, Convection and Radiation
Mechanical Mixtures and Solutions
Solids, Liquids and Gases
A student demonstrates their understanding of the movement of heat energy through a convection current. This convection current results in a sea breeze coming off the water.
Program by: rowed2success (remix, 2022)
This convection current sets up at night and creates a land breeze.
Program by: rowed2success (remix, 2022)
Heat energy is transferred between metal particles by conduction.
Program by: Pineapple_B (2022)
Program by: KeepCalmAndDanceOne2 (2022)
Air particles gain heat energy by conduction and radiation.
Program by: rowed2success (remix, 2022)
Program by: dontknow0826 (2022)
Program by: locotaco5253 (2022)
Water particles gain heat energy from the sun's radiation.
Program by: tacocat1358 (2022)
A student demonstrates their understanding of how particles behave in a solid that is a mechanical mixture.
Program by: randomwords0826 (2022)
Another student demonstrates their understanding of how particles behave in a liquid that is a mechanical mixture.
Program by: Pineapple_B (2022)
A student demonstrates their understanding of how particles behave in salt water.
Program by: Brownieboi122 (2022)
Another student demonstrates their understanding of how particles behave in the air.
Program by: 15SSSS (2022)
A student demonstrates their understanding of how particles behave in a solid compound.
Program by: hazelnut7 (2022)
Program by: Brownieboi122 (2021)
Program by: locotaco5253 (2021)
Program by: TacoAlert (2021)
Additional Animation Activities
These are ideas that I would love to try to integrate into my science classroom.
Animate the journey of a drop of water through the water cycle (Ouyang, Hayden, & Remold, 2018) or a carbon atom through the carbon cycle.
Animate particle movement in thermal expansion and contraction.
Animate a solute dissolving in a solvent.
Animate the Bohr model of an element (M, n.d.).
Animate diffusion of a perfume throughout a room.
Animate the energy levels of electrons moving through an electrical circuit.
Animate our solar system with planets rotating around the sun (Barr & Stephenson, 2011; Yadav, Hong, & Stephenson, 2016). Watch this video of a solar system animation created on Tynker (Precious Leap, n.d.).
Animate the movement of materials across a semipermeable membrane.
Simulate how populations respond to disease outbreaks (Yadav et al., 2016) and invasive species (Catete, Lytle, Dong, Boulden, Akram, Houchins, Barnes, Wiebe, Lester, Mott, & Boyer, 2018)
Simulate a closed fish tank system to study the relationship between fish, duckweed and bacteria (Basu, Dickes, Kinnebrew, Sengupta, & Biswas, 2013; Sengupta, Kinnebrew, Basu, Biswas, & Clark, 2013).
Simulate competition in ecological systems through the survival game (Waterman, Goldsmith, & Pasquale, 2019).
Barr, V., & Stephenson, C. (2011). Bringing computational thinking to K-12: What is involved and what is the role of the computer science education community?. Acm Inroads, 2(1), 48-54.
Basu, S., Dickes, A., Kinnebrew, J. S., Sengupta, P., & Biswas, G. (2013). CTSiM: A computational thinking environment for learning science through simulation and modeling. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference of Computer Supported Education, 369-378. https://doi.org/10.5220/0004390103690378
Catete, V., Lytle, N., Dong, Y., Boulden, D., Akram, B., Houchins, J., Barnes, T., Wiebe, E., Lester, J., Mott, B., & Boyer, K. (2018). Infusing computational thinking into middle grade science classrooms: Lesson learned. In Proceedings of the 13th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education, 21, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1145/3265757.3265778
M., D. (n.d.). Scratch an element. Common Sense Education. Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/lesson-plans/scratch-an-element
Ouyang, Y., Hayden, K. L., & Remold, J. (2018). Introducing computational thinking through non-programming science activities. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education,308-313. https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3159520
Precious Leap. (n.d.). Solar System [Video]. Tynker. https://www.tynker.com/play/solar-system/623a1499856fba5fa0189eb7-868396Xr9JpW5,r79B5JfTfMyHdYsk
Sengupta, P., Kinnebrew, J. S., Basu, S., Biswas, G., & Clark, D. (2013). Integrating computational thinking with K-12 science education using agent-based computation: A theoretical framework. Education and Information Technologies, 18, 331-380. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-012-9240-x
Waterman, K. P., Goldsmith, L., & Pasquale, M. (2020). Integrating computational thinking into elementary science curriculum: An examination of activities that support students’ computational thinking in the service of disciplinary learning. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 29(1), 53-64.
Yadav, A., Hong, H., & Stephenson, C. (2016). Computational thinking for all: Pedagogical approaches to embedding 21st century problem solving in K-12 classrooms. Tech Trends, 60, 565-568. doi: 10/1007/s11528-016-0087-7