34 PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014 PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014

Young people can be motivated to learn science using the power of various

entertainment media. We also need to recognise that they are accessing science through informal learning outside school. With children saying they have learnt from cartoons such as Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants, it would seem that entertaining animations can also be useful learning resources (Swann, 2013). While much research has focused on educational entertainment media (or ‘edutainment’), such as THIRTEEN’s National Science

Foundation-funded animation, Cyberchase, which informally educates the public through a mathematics mystery series (Figure 2), very little research has been conducted on children’s learning about the natural world from entertainment media.

Determining what is realChildren understand what is real based on ‘modality judgements’ (Chandler, 1997): if what they see on a programme and real-life perceptions are very different, the programme has a weak modality. Animated movies have a weaker modality than live-action documentaries, but some

animations can have a stronger modality than others. For example, Disney/ Pixar’s Finding Nemo would

Key words:

Types of activities

Life processes

Creativity

Sai Pathmanathan describes her research into

the educational role of entertainment media

HOW ENTERTAINMENT

MEDIA AID LEARNING ABOUT

THE NATURAL WORLD

Figure 1 Finding Nemo was heavily researched before creating the film. The creators studied real clownfish and consulted marine biologists (courtesy, David Gruber, Baruch College, CUNY)

Figure 2 Cyberchase, the only mathematics

mystery series, stealthily educating children in the United States (courtesy, THIRTEEN Productions

LLC)

PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014 PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014 35 PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014

be stronger than DreamWorks Animation’s Shark Tale, as the former is more true to life than the latter (e.g. fish swimming rather than walking with their fins).

Many shows and films impart knowledge as a by-product of their creators wanting the characters, narratives and environments to be as real and as authentic as possible, that is, they want them to be believable even though they are not ‘real’ (Figure 1).

So what would two classes, year 3 (ages 7–8) and year 6 (ages 10–11), from a Hertfordshire primary school learn from two different films we showed them?

What did they learn?The two classes were shown the same 20-minute clips of Finding Nemo (animation) and BBC Worldwide’s Deep Jungle (live action documentary) – Figure 3. Both clips contained entertaining and emotion-inducing scenes, essential to the narrative, and were the types of programme students could watch in their spare time. To provide some cognitive conflict, the animation clip chosen contained some believable material (where clownfish live) and the live-action clip contained some hard-to-believe material (a

reconstruction depicting the legend of a chicken-eating spider) (Table 1).

The children each completed pre- and post-viewing questionnaires about their understanding of the film clips. The average score for each year group for each film was then calculated and converted to percentages in order to calculate the difference (Table 2).

Older students had better pre- and post-viewing scores, as they are better able to make inferences from what is heard, as well as seen. Although it seems that year 3 gained more scientific knowledge from Finding Nemo than year 6, there was a more significant gain in knowledge for both groups after viewing Deep Jungle. This could be because 96% of children in both years 3 and 6 had seen Finding Nemo before (which also explains its higher pre-viewing scores), whereas only 7% had seen Deep Jungle. The novelty of Deep Jungle, and therefore the children’s increased engagement, appears to have led to better assimilation and recall of content. The children also indicated that they felt they had learnt more from Deep Jungle (50% of year 3 students, 47% of year 6 students), indicating that they were aware of their learning. Their answers, when

asked what exactly they had learnt, ranged from scientific facts to social learning:85% of the Amazon has not been explored. Sea turtles can live to about 100 years.Do what your mum or dad tells you.

Emotion and learningWe remember stories and films better if they have a mild emotional effect on us, which is the premise behind learning from cartoons. The cognitive processes in the right frontal lobe of the brain (Shammi and Stuss, 1999), involved in understanding humour (e.g. recognising the punchline), are the same as those involved in problem solving and reasoning. Engaging

Table 1 Description of the two clips chosen for the classroom-based research

Film Genre and other information Content in the chosen 20-minute clip for testing

Finding Nemo (Disney/Pixar, 2003) Computer-generated animation (USA), fictional story with celebrity voices given to characters.

Not explicitly educational, but refers to accurate marine biology.

Clownfish, turtles, anemones, sharks, memory-loss, predator–prey relationships, different marine species.

Deep Jungle (BBC Worldwide, 2005) Live-action documentary (UK), narrated by Scottish actor, John Hannah.

Not explicitly educational, as not directed at schools (however educational resources were developed later).

Amazon rainforest, Brazil nut tree, seed pod dispersal, germination, spiders, legend of the chicken-eating spider, scientific research, historical references and re-enactments.

Table 2 Average percentage pre-viewing, post-viewing, and gain scores for year 3 and year 6 children

Year group n Film clip viewed Pre-viewing score (% correct)

Post-viewing score (% correct)

Gain in scientific knowledge (%)

Year 3 24 Finding Nemo 29.17 34.87 5.70

Year 6 30 Finding Nemo 38.07 42.28 4.21

Year 3 24 Deep Jungle 11.56 22.92 11.34

Year 6 30 Deep Jungle 16.67 44.07 27.41

Figure 3 Children age 7–11 were ‘tested’ on their knowledge of Finding Nemo after viewing it – how much accurate marine biology did they pick up?

LEARNING FROM ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA

36 PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014 PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014

stories play on our emotions and this can trigger the release of noradrenaline in the amygdala in the brain, which improves memory at that particular time (Southwick et al., 2002). Novel events and events that stimulate moderate emotion are better remembered than neutral ones. By contrast, events that give rise to strong emotions, such as extreme fear or excessive laughter, will result in less cognitive processing, as all attention will be on the emotions elicited (Fisch, 2004).

However, sometimes the ‘entertainment’ may not result in learning. The educational content needs to be closely interlinked with the narrative, because of what Fisch calls the ‘capacity model’ (Fisch, 2004), which states that the working memory has limited capacity

during viewing. Our working memory helps us to follow what is happening in a story and pick up any learning. If the narrative and educational content are not closely linked (as they are not in pure entertainment programmes), narrative dominance occurs and only the story is cognitively processed: the learning is lost.

So what did they believe?Around half of both year groups believed everything shown in both clips (58% of year 3 children, 40% of year 6 children). However, 17% of year 3 children and 27% of year 6 children did not believe Finding Nemo because ‘fish cannot talk’!

In post-viewing interviews, some children believed that in the Deep Jungle clip, a man was suffering

from leishmaniasis as his diseased leg was shown:Yeah. I believe that, because we saw it. And you’d hardly put on a fake leg just for a film. (year 3 child)But there was some debate among year 6 children over the chicken-eating spider:I didn’t think a spider that big could kill a chicken.They can ’cause there’s a bird-eating spider that big.What the children felt they had learnt was related to what they already believed to be true, regardless of whether they were viewing an animation or live-action documentary. If information differed from what they already knew from other sources, they

Table 3 A selection of other cartoon clips that could be useful for teaching science

Film/programme Some of the accurate science in it Makers

The Lion King Animal behaviour, female lions do most hunting, hyenas in packs, wildebeest stampede Disney

Happy Feet Emperor penguin behaviour, penguin breeding, parental roles, leopard seals, predator-prey relationships

Warner Bros

Octonauts Real marine animals and habitats introduced in each episode, e.g. cookie cutter sharks, blobfish and phenomena such as coral bleaching

Brown Bag Films

Arthur Episodes cover issues such as asthma, Asperger syndrome, dyslexia Cookie Jar Entertainment

My Friend Boo Episodes on energy, climate change, environment, conservation and healthy living Business Solutions Europa

Wild Kratts Wildlife species introduced in each episode, ecology, zoology, live action presentation Kratt Bros Company and 9 Story Entertainment

Peep and the Big Wide World

(Aimed at early years.) Science concepts introduced in each episode, live-action segments where children experiment and investigate

WGBH and 9 Story Entertainment

WALL-E Environmental issues, waste, recycling, sustainability, loss of bone density in space (microgravity) Disney/Pixar

Meet the Robinsons

Neuroscience, genetic engineering, science fairs Disney

Robots Magnetism, supermagnets, rusting, ball bearings, problem solving, inventions, creative thinking, resilience

Blue Sky Studios

Tarzan Animal behaviour, piranhas are native to South America, silverback gorillas using sticks as tools, hippos, elephant stampede, jungle canopy, social grooming, bacteria in the water

Disney

A Bug’s Life Insect anatomy (e.g. ants, stag beetles, ladybirds, spiders, grasshoppers), surface tension of water, colony structure, metamorphosis, moths attracted to lights

Disney/Pixar

Ice Age Evolution, climate change, extinction and extinct species (e.g. mammoth, sabre-toothed cat, dodo), migration, food chains

Blue Sky Studios

Madagascar Animal behaviour, ring-tailed lemurs are native to Madagascar, predator–prey relationships, wild animals kept at Central Park Zoo, surviving in the wild, eating for energy

DreamWorks Animation

Open Season Debate on hunting, domesticating wild animals, alpha-male deer, National Forests, porcupines, beavers, skunks marking territory

Sony Pictures Animation

Over The Hedge Hibernation, animals that hibernate, foraging, rural vs urban, amphibians and reptiles, full Moon (Moon phases), raccoons, rabies, opossums playing dead

DreamWorks Animation

LEARNING FROM ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA

PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014 PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014 37 PRIMARY SCIENCE 134 Sept/Oct 2014

occurred with Deep Jungle, where children repeated the presenter’s description of how a spider’s bite is harmless to us, as their ‘jaws are not big enough to penetrate the skin’.

During the interviews, both year 3 and year 6 children felt that they could learn from cartoons, often mentioning a didactic format:Yeah, if it’s like someone, a man, cartoon man actually saying about science or something like that. (year 3 child)

ConclusionIn this study I found that young people can learn science from entertainment programmes, as they are relaxed and engaged by novel content and believable situations. They feel that programmes and films can be both entertaining and educational, and content is more important to them than format. It is also valuable for us as educators to know that children can pick up accurate science from many sources of popular culture. And should children’s informal learning result in misconceptions, these can be addressed in class to nurture discriminatory skills and to encourage them to think about the wider implications of science within their lives.

Some ideas for entertaining animations to help your class with their science learning are given in Table 3.

AcknowledgementsMany thanks go to my MA tutors Ruth Amos and Ralph Levinson, and to Peter Chaniotis from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee for his expertise in marine biology and statistical analysis. Also to the children

did not believe it. This agrees with cultivation theory (Chandler, 1997): that watching television can contribute to our knowledge of the world around us.

Is the type of media important?When asked which clip they enjoyed more, as opposed to learnt most from, more year 3 children preferred Deep Jungle than Finding Nemo, whereas the opposite was true for those in year 6:Well, I learned more about the animals I knew … and about things like the Amazon was the biggest rainforest in the world, and about the Brazil nut tree … and I found it quite interesting about thinking that a tarantula could eat chickens. (year 3 child who preferred Deep Jungle)I don’t like spiders. Finding Nemo was funny and I like funny things. And Deep Jungle was a bit boring for me. (year 6 child who preferred Finding Nemo)Possibly the older students liked Finding Nemo because it seemed less academic (being older, they wanted a bit more ‘fun’ in class), but they were also aware that there was much to learn from the animation. The younger students seemed more eager to learn about scarier subjects (spiders, jungle wildlife) and were more excited by the novelty of the live action (many had seen the Finding Nemo cartoon before and even owned it on DVD, so there is an element of ‘repeat viewing’ contributing to learning too). This links to the capacity model: both clips successfully linked education and entertainment. While students may have preferred one clip over another, the format did not matter: they had learnt from both.

Mild fear in the case of Deep Jungle, or light humour in the case of Finding Nemo, could have had a positive effect on engagement, attention and memory consolidation. Most children in both year groups for a post-viewing question about short-term memory loss, stated word-for-word what Dory in Finding Nemo had said: ‘forgets things almost instantly’. We can attribute this to the capacity model: as Dory’s short-term memory loss is integral to the plotline, children processed and retained this information. The same

of Summercroft Primary School, Bishop’s Stortford, and Bangabandhu Primary School, Bethnal Green, who enjoyed learning about science from Finding Nemo and Deep Jungle.

ReferencesChandler, D. (1997) Children’s

understanding of what is ‘real’ on television: a review of the literature. Journal of Educational Media, 23(1), 65–80.

Fisch, S. M. (2004) Children’s learning from educational television: Sesame Street and beyond. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Shammi, P. and Stuss, D. T. (1999) Humour appreciation: a role of the right frontal lobe. Brain, 122(4), 657–666.

Southwick, S. M., Davis, M., Horner, B., Cahill, L., Morgan, C. A. 3rd, Gold, P. E., Bremner, J. D. and Charney, D. C. (2002) Relationship of enhanced norepinephrine activity during memory consolidation to enhanced long-term memory in humans. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159(8), 1420–1422.

Swann, A. (2013) ‘Make up your favourite TV host’: discussion of the U.K. element of a global study on children’s television presenters. In The children’s media yearbook 2013, ed. Whitaker, L. pp. 145–151. London: The Children’s Media Foundation.

Sai Pathmanathan is currently a freelance science education consultant, writing and developing creative educational resources and outreach workshops. She was a Research Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London, an International Informal Science Education Fellow at the National Science Foundation, Washington DC, USA and Director of the Ignition* programme. Email: sai.pathmanathan@googlemail.com

WebsitesCyberchase: http://pbskids.org/cyberchaseDeep Jungle: www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/deep-jungle-new-frontiers/introduction/1369Finding Nemo: www.imdb.com/title/tt0266543Shark Tale: www.imdb.com/title/tt0307453SpongeBob SquarePants: www.imdb.com/title/tt0206512

Figure 4 My Friend Boo is a series of short downloadable animations about alternative energy, saving water and healthy living (courtesy Business Solutions Europa)

LEARNING FROM ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA