Award recognizes video program's child-friendly explanation of the scientific process
04/22/2008
Praising it as “excellent,” “understandable” and “well-thought-out,” an international group of communication professionals has bestowed a perfect rating and a gold medal on a forestry education video produced jointly by the Oregon Forest Resources Institute and Oregon State University.
The Association for Communication Excellence (ACE) gave Inquiry at Hinkle Creek: Doing Science in Our Forests its highest honor in the category of script writing for visual media. In rating the program a perfect 100 out of 100 possible points, the association said the video’s producers created “an excellent example of the scientific inquiry process in an understandable format.”
Written, produced, recorded and edited by OSU producer Jeff Hino and OFRI’s K-12 Program Manager Norie Dimeo-Ediger, Inquiry at Hinkle Creek is an instructional video program geared for students in grades 5 through 12. The program also helps teachers and students meet the Oregon Department of Education’s science inquiry benchmarks.
The 16-minute program follows a paired-watershed study outside Roseburg to show the role that scientific research plays in forest management. OSU scientists and others are using two branches of Hinkle Creek to study how forestry operations affect water quality and fish and wildlife habitat.
In a statement accompanying the award, the ACE judge called the program “a major contribution to secondary education.”
Knowing the importance of keeping the story and images engaging for students, the producers focused on the miniature radio transmitters that scientists place in fish. “The process had the great outdoors, animals, high technology and a high ‘yuck’ factor when the biologists conducted minor fish surgery to insert PIT tags (radio transponders) into the fish to track them,” Hino said. “Just the kind of thing we needed to keep student attention!”
Other challenges included involving students in solving a mystery and showing that science is a human activity requiring imagination and intuition in addition to logical analysis, Hino said. “We felt that our Hinkle story and interviews captured the excitement – and fun – that the fish biologists had while pursuing their science.”
The Association for Communication Excellence is an international organization of communicators with a focus on agriculture, natural resources, and life and human sciences. ACE announced the award for Inquiry at Hinkle Creek in late March as part of its 2008 Critique & Awards Program.
The 16-minute video for students in grades 5-12 is available free, either by itself or as part of the Teacher Packet, from the Facts and Resources section of the OFRI Web site, along with other educational materials for teachers and for the general public.
Visit OFRI’s Web site: www.oregonforests.org.
For more information contact:
Dave Kvamme, OFRI – 971-673-2948