This project improves the instructional capability of the laboratory component of the basic core curricular course, Revolutions in Science, by enhancing specific student video acquisition and production facilities. The course, which is team taught by Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Earth Science faculty, serves non-science-majors and science majors alike, and includes the full range of student abilities. The course's video laboratory project requires the 55 to 70 students enrolled, working in groups of 3 or 4, to create instructional videos on science topics of each group's choosing. Student responsibility for the final video product extends from the initial research phase through and including final editing. The videos are presented to their peers and the instructors at the end of the course. This program had depended upon home-quality equipment, which necessarily involved inefficient component integration. The nonlinear editing capabilities of the new equipment provides a more professional and robust system, allows a broader range of subject matter and techniques, increases production quality and student efficiency, and provides a greater capability for the production of student-made instructional science videos. This project may serve as a model for training other science faculty in using this successful experimental approach to science education.
