Frankenstuffy Project

Since the beginning of this term we began a new unit where we learned about the geography of Canada which at the end would eventually lead up to a big final video assignment call project Frankenstuffy. We started this unit off by learning the introduction to geography including climate, physical regions, cultural landscapes, natural regions and precipitation.

At the same time we started learning about geography we started reading a book called The Martian which is a science fiction story about how an astronaut survives on Mars with out any other civilization. Throughout reading the book filled out novel reflections sheets where we showed our understanding of the chapters we had read and shared the sheet with our table group. Here are the four novel sheets:

During this unit after learning about geography and reading the book we started our big project called project frankenstuffy. We started this project by our table groups being assigned one of the seven Canadian regions my group got the Canadian Shield which is Ontario and Quebec around the Hudson’s Bay. We then picked one area of the region where I picked south east Canadian Shield. We then picked an animal that lived in our region, I picked a caribou as they are very easily spotted in Grand Jardin National park which is a park of my region. With both an animal and our region we then we had to come up with a story where a disaster happens to the region. The disaster is caused by our math monster which was a project we did in math to learn about surface area and volume of 3D shapes. This disaster then effects our animal in some way and causes the animal to evolve and gains some of the other characteristics of an other animal. These characteristics then help the animal survive or try to survive the disaster and defeat the math monster.

To come up with our story we created a story outline where we showed the exposition, the rising action context, the rising action scope, the climax, the falling action and the impact of our story. Here is my story outline:

With this we then took the idea for our story and wrote 8 epistolaries of 250 to 500 words explaining different parts of our how our monster effects the environment of our animal and how it adapts. The interesting thing is we wrote them in different creative ways like I wrote them in first person so as if we were the animal.

We started out with writing 1, 2 and 3 which was about how my animal a caribou named Caramel in his home in Grand Jardin National Park. Episode one explains Caramel is living happily with no problems and the different encounters she might have with other animals and the environment. Episode 2 talks about the different characteristics of a caribou like they can swim in water, also how they eat lichen off the trees and Caramel’s interactions with the thee caribous. In episode 3 the story starts to change when Caramel the caribou hears a noise that at first he thinks is a wood pecker but turns out to be loggers cutting down tree in the forest. At first this doesn’t pose a threat but then Caramel releases that the lichen her population sets grows on the trees and if they are cut down her herd won’t have anything to eat.

Here are the epistolaries one, two and three:

We then wrote episode 4,5 and 6 which explain how the caribous are really being affected by the logging and are starting to have problem finding food. Also their home is being destroyed and the herd of caribous is thinking about leaving their home because caribous aren’t very good at adapting to change. Caramel also starts to evolve to adapt to these changes growing camel humps helping her adapt to the food problem being about to go up to five days without food, as well as being about to not drink the polluted water for up to 7 months. These epistolaries all give a different perspective to the story giving the opinions of the loggers to give some interest to the story. In these episodes Caramel also comes up and goes through with a plan to stop the loggers and save his home well the rest of the caribou leave their home.

Here are epistolaries four, five and six:

Epistolaries seven and eight talk about the after affect of the loggers that even though they’ve been stopped their is still effects on the environment that will never go back to the natural state they were once in. Also how because most of the threes are cut down Caramel finds a new food source in the lake evolving gills to be able to breath under water and get seaweed to eat. The story ends with people who are planting trees in the forest and Caramel thinks that maybe the humans aren’t so bad after all.

Here are my epistolaries seven and eight:

Then with our two animals picked out we then brought the story to life with a frankenstuffy we made of our animals out of stuffed animals that will be hung up in our classroom. Here is the frankenstuffy i created:

After writing the epistolaries we then created a storyboard that would be used to make our video. The storyboard helps us plan out our video with by making us plan the shots we are going to say, our script as well as the timing for each shot.
Here is my storyboard:

We then created our video using different apps like iMovie, Explain Everything, and Veescope live. We followed the story we wrote and made the video, Here is my first draft of my video:

After finishing the first draft we then got critique and edited our video for the next draft which we then handed into our teacher to edit. For my edits I shortened my video as well as did the recording for my video again.

This is my second draft:

After making some final drafts this is my final draft of my video:

Overall this has been a fun project especially when we got to create a video for our frankenstuffy as well as crest the actual frankenstuffy by sewing them together. This project taught me a bunch of different skills and let me experiment with different techniques of video editing that I’ve learnt this past year.