Hello guys!
First time posting here, my Senior High School students are learning about Space in class (astronauts, International Space Station, etc) and my JTE requested a short 30 minute video to tide them over for a class.
The thing is, I don’t really know much about space itself, if anyone that consumes media on topic knows any movie, video or anything online that I could use I would appreciate it! It can be a longer length movie that we watch the first thirty minutes of as well!
…are movies like Interstellar, Gravity and The Martian something I could show these students? I’ve only heard about them so not sure if they’re actually about real space.
6 comments
For shorter videos, Kurzgesagt has a nice selection of space themed stuff. Crash Course Astronomy is also pretty cool. Crash Course kids has a [25 minute Space compilation](https://youtu.be/Td_A9H69eE8), too.
Most of those movies have some decent science behind them, but they’re also more about the personal journeys of the characters. Kids probably won’t learn much from them.
[Dust](https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC7sDT8jZ76VLV1u__krUutA) has a lot of short, often space-based, sci-fi movies between 15 and 30 mins. I’m not an english teacher myself so I’m not really sure whether they would work for your needs but some are philosophically quite interesting and I imagine you could build some nice pre- and post-show activities around them. ‘FTL’ is quite good – its a story of someone making the first faster-than-light jump, but on the return he’s intercepted by aliens who turn out to be benevolent and return him home. You could get your best student up front and have her interviewed by the class in the role of the pilot, or have them write a diary entry about the experience, or ask them in advance whether they think aliens are out there and whether we should go and meet them etc
TED Talks (at the TED website or on YouTube) are good and usually have just a single simple point that will likely not be something they have studied during other classes. You could also check sites or video types such as Khan Academy.
Narrative videos (movies such as *Interstellar*) are difficult because (a) they take too much time, (b) they do not lend themselves to testing or comprehension checks, (c) the language is often overly idiomatic, and (d) they are narratives that follow narrative arcs that students will be familiar enough with that will not need to pay particular attention to the language (as silent movies show us). There are also copyright considerations, not to mention that some kids may have already seen whatever popular movie you might choose.
I’m sure my fellow 90’s kids who grew up in the 2000’s in the US will agree that this is a perfect fit for either Bill Nye the science guy and/or the Magic School Bus. Both of which have full episodes on YouTube. I’m sure you’ll find them as catering for young kids but they should be good for the lower level English learners as well.
Magic School Bus has an episode in outer space. Totally got me into astronomy when I was a kid!
There’s an amazing Discovery Channel documentary called When We Left Earth. It’s quite long, but you could probably find something interesting in there. Otherwise, check out [nasa.gov](https://nasa.gov) or [space.com](https://space.com) for video resources. A lot of astronauts do live streaming with students from the ISS and are probably on youtube. You could look for one with a Japanese astronaut speaking English, which might be interesting for the students.