Innovation in the Age of Discovery

The 8th grade Social Studies students created an iMovie commercial that explained why a certain invention was better than what had existed before. The students had to promote either a galleon over a caravel or a musket over an arquebus. First, the students created an Inspiration diagram to outline the characteristics of the items that they were comparing. Next, they created a storyboard for their commercial in Google Docs. Finally, the students used their storyboards to create the iMovie, which had to be approximately 70 seconds long and contain two audio tracks. This lesson took nine class periods to complete.