A little bit of FLiP technology and whole lot of heart…
That is what Jessica Binckley, 11, of Park Hill School District’s Renner Elementary, used to create a health video on childhood obesity, which recently won the Show Me Something New Elementary Category of the Show Me a Film contest. She and her video were recognized earlier this year at a Midwest Education Technology Conference in St. Charles with nine other videos and more than 30 students from around the state.
“I decided to make (the film) because I had heard about how many people were being overweight and kids were starting to be obese too,” Binckley said. “When you are obese, then you can get a lot of diseases from that and you could be a kid or an adult for that to happen. I chose that because it’s important to me, of course. It’s just something that I don’t like to see happen.”
Binckley also said that she would never want to be put in that situation. Despite no first-hand experience dealing with childhood obesity, she still says it is a national epidemic that needs addressed.
In her 2-minute film entitled “Heading Towards Health,” Binckley and one of her friends portray two very opposite children, one of which educates the other on the risks of obesity and why exercise is important. In it, Binckley portrays an active girl with a friend who is lethargic and “doesn’t like to do much.”
“I’m being active and exercising and then I tell her some of the things that could happen — heart attack and other health issues — and then she just kind of doesn’t know those kind of things could happen,” Binckley said. “After that, she gets into it, too, and at the very end we exercise and jump rope together.”
The technology Binckley used to create the video was simple: a camera recorder, tripod and laptop. The laptop came from Park Hill School District’s Future Learner Project (FLiP) technology pilot program and aided in the processing of the award-winning film.
The FLiP program was implemented in fifth grade classrooms at Line Creek, Southeast and Renner elementary schools this school year with each student receiving a laptop for instructional purposes.