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Teaching Ideas: http://www.intel.com/education/sections/section1/index.htm One of the "exemplary unit plans" available at their site is entitled "Healthy Oceans, Healthy Planet." (http://www.intel.com/education/unitplans/ocean/ocean.htm) Designed for grades 3 to 5, the unit plan has the following instructional goals as quoted from the Intel site: Curriculum Framing Questions
The overview of the unit gives one a sense of a number of exciting instructional possibilities for students: "Young marine biologists and oceanographers study our world’s oceans, and serve as expert witnesses at a hearing before delegates at the United Nations. They describe the state of our world’s oceans, explain the significance of healthy oceans for a healthy planet, and make suggestions for solving environmental problems in the watery part of our world." In addition to detailed instructional procedures, the site also provides complete resources and a list of the curriculum standards that have been addressed, in particular, for Texas. The wealth of information and resources available on oceans makes it a terrific project for multimedia. As the teachers working with Intel have already done the hard work of crafting an indepth unit of study, I thought I would go the next step and pull together a quick multimedia template that students and teachers could use with the unit. The frames in the unit have been organized according to the unit questions noted above. The project consists of the following frames:
Frame 1: Title Frame The title frame has a picture stretched across it that has a beveled effect applied. If you go to the eZediaMX Resources folder, you'll find another folder called Transparency Wells and inside there, you'll see a well called Borders. The Borders well has lots of photo effects that you can simply drag in and resize to fit your photo. If you don't like the effect, just delete it. When the frame opens, the question appearing at the bottom of the frame comes flying in and around the frame from the top and settles in at the bottom. Once it is in place, the invitation to join us appears. The first frame illustrates the use of a path object that is created by doing nothing more than clicking and drawing a path on the frame for the text to follow. What is a little unique on this frame is that there is a link going from the path object to the text object containing the invitation line. By double-clicking on the link between these two things I can tell the text object to appear at the end of the path object's activity. So I can control the appearance of the text box based on what the path is doing. Frames 2 through 9: Content frames I've kept the content frames quite plain. You'll see a quit button at the top of each frame, except for the first one where it has been discreetly placed at the bottom. I've adapted a seashell graphic to function as next and previous buttons. There is also a Table of Contents button. I've placed an invisible menu object on top of it, so that you think you're clicking on the Table of Contents button to make the menu list appear. By sliding open the right side of the frame in the editor on frame 2, you'll see how it went together and you can adjust it anyway you want. There's only one frame for each topic area which isn't going to be enough. You can click on frame, duplicate frame to add in a frame just like the ones I've created or click on frame, new frame, to create one that is plain white. Remember that I am only providing the template as a sort of "story starter." You and your students will be able to create your own unique projects. I'm just providing you with some ideas that illustrate a few possibilities. Figure 1: This is the title frame for the multimedia project that goes with the unit. Reducing the file size for the picture has resulted in some distortion of the text.  Figure 2: This frame shows the introductory frame that sets the purpose for the project. Keep in mind that each of the sections, if explored in depth, could be an individual project unto themselves.  Figure 3: This frame simply illustrates the drop-down menu that has been built for the project and which exists on every frame. It only shows up if you click on the Table of Contents button. Students can change any of the items on the menu. In addition, you'll notice the little sea shells at the bottom of each frame that function as next and previous buttons.  Design Variations Here's another variation on the design for the title frame. The frame color has been set to black and a very cool animated gif of the Earth rotating has been included on the frame. As you view the title frame, you can see the movie of the Earth turning, illustrating the point rather well that the Earth is indeed all about water. You can get the animated globe at: http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/pxearth.html The animated gif is located toward the bottom of the page under Movies and is called "Rotating relief globe of Earth". Figure 4: Variation on title frame with animated gif that rotates and shows Earth's topography. 
Figure 5: Here's the same frame using the satellite photos made into movies available from NASA. You can get this one at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/  The Intel unit, Healthy Oceans, Healthy Planet, includes a number of websites. Here are a few more. Resources: Pictures of Earth from space Includes movies http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/pxearth.html Incredible pictures of the Earth http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/ Earth Observatory from NASA http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Observatory/# By clicking on Sea Surface Temperatures, you can create your own animations of ocean temperatures in either a "flat map" format or an animated globe. You can then download the created images. Very cool! SeaWiFS Project Image Archive : NASA takes a look at the oceans. The National Undersea Research Program (NURP) from NOAA This is the photo library from "the nation's only federal scientific program that specializes in providing access to undersea technology to help us better manage Earth's last frontier." Wonderful images (and lots of them!) and links. http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEAWIFS/IMAGES/IMAGES.html Exploring the Environment: Water Quality http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/waterq/waterq.html NASA's discussion and illustration of the water cycle for students http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/Sites/ExternSite.asp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fobserve%2Earc%2Enasa%2 Egov%2Fnasa%2Fearth%2Fhydrocycle%2Fhydro1%2Ehtml For Kids Only: How NASA Studies Water http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/Sites/ExternSite.asp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fkids%2Eearth%2Enasa%2Egov%2F NOAA's Ark - Photos of all sorts of animals - most related to coastal issues http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/animals/index.html NOAA American's Coastlines - Photos http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/coastline/index.html NOAA Marine Sanctury Photos http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/sanctuary/index.html NOAA Coral Kingdom Photos http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/reef/index.html Project Template and Project Well Both of these files are fairly small. The template is about 250 kb zipped and the Object Well is only about 18 kb. Download the eZediaMX project template Download the eZediaMX project well Get the free eZedia player here to see the project up and running: http://www.ezedia.ca/products/eZedia_player/ eZedia works equally well for Macs or Windows machines. Note: The picture that's been adapted on the first frame comes from: http://aquarium.gbrmpa.gov.au/content/takeatour.shtml
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