Capstone Project – Integrating Animation in Physics

Problem of Practice

How to promote creativity in a remote classroom by using technology? How to encourage students to discover the connections and applications of content knowledge in daily activities?

Rossier Mission alignment

Improve learning opportunities and outcomes by engaging students in higher-order thinkings that involves creativity and critical thinking
- Create a short animation by applying the knowledge of motion and forces
- Evaluate the commercial animations and degree of reality by examining the physics behind the motion

Address disparities that affect historically marginalized groups by emerging the students in high-tech low-cost engineering projects

Value the student’s choices and voices of project ideas
Using student creations to overcome the technology gaps that are complicated by the remote learning environment
Engage students in authentic experiences that foster college and career readiness

Peer-reviewed Research papers and connections

Chai, G. (2011). Physics for Animation Artists. The Physics Teacher, 49(8), 478–480. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3651727

“Unfortunately, at present there is little overlap between art and science in the typical high school or college curriculum. This article describes our experience in bridging this gap at San Jose State University, with the hope that readers will find ideas that can be used in their own schools.”

Nearly two-thirds of the high school students disagreed with the statement, “The subject of physics has little relation to what I experience in the real world” and that increased to 96% for graduating college seniors. For both groups, about 85% of these art students agreed with the statement, “Nearly everyone is capable of understanding physics if they work at it.” One student from Art/Physics 123 wrote, “I love how the class puts a rationalization to the physical world. It gives me extra ways to understand things when I animate. Allowing me to make things more convincing or by informing myself. I can make decisions on how I want something to look.”

Ryu, Z. (2020). Fluid Mechanics Education Using Japanese Anime: Examples from “Castle in the Sky” by Hayao Miyazaki. The Physics Teacher, 58(4), 230–233. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.5145464

Bringing visual pop culture into the classroom can help to create a common experience among students that can then be used as an anchor for learning key concepts while connecting with students’ interests and increasing engagement.2 Animation can be useful for teaching physics, because although animation generally reflects reality, it is less constrained by reality than is live-action media, and this potential for separation from reality provides opportunities to test the extent to which principles of physics are bent in the “world” of the animated characters.

Action Plan

Animation Background Survey
Introduction to Animation – History of Animation

Rank the most Physics realistic animation activity

Discussion: Do animations need to follow physics principles? If yes, why? If not, why not? If in between, tell us where is the best?
Student work [Check out resources]
- Create (Modify) the program to simulate the projectile motion of a kick
  - Extra challenge: simulate the ball bouncing up and forward when hitting the ground
  - Evaluate a scene (or a clip) in an animation or a movie and determine whether the motions of the characters follow the physics principles. If not, explain what the real one should be like. The student should also evaluate whether the unrealistic scene is a successful artistic design.
Post survey

Data Analysis

Concept of “Time” – every Physics teacher struggles, but students believe it is most important!
“Common experiences” -20% more submission than motion writing homework, and incorporating academic vocabularies in the writing
Higher average grades in solving word problems
Best moment – “I like your animation lesson!”
Most of the students were able to identify unrealistic animations but struggled to find the most accurate one in Physics.
Students who need additional instructional support did not participate in the activities much.

Conclusions

Animations and motion movies provide a visual and real-world context for students to understand complex word problems
We could learn our students better in the authentic problem-solving context. Most of the students were willing to share their opinions and took risks to solve complex problems when it came to their familiar topics. It especially worked for medium performing students. However, pop culture may become a ‘cultural tax’ for students who are not familiar with them.
Opportunities to pre-assess the student background knowledge and anchoring phenomenon to create the storyline
Future studies: How could we approach the students who think such activities are ‘extra work?’