Welcome to Flipside Science   

California Academy of Sciences

A youth-powered series that tackles complex environmental topics and empowers viewers to make a difference. This engaging and upbeat collection of videos, hosted by Academy youth, explores how local communities are addressing environmental problems.

This was a HUGE team effort almost 25 folks combined to create these.

Kira worked on 11 videos, helping with script writing, directing youth talent, shooting, video editing, graphics (I was not the motion graphics person though), sound design, SFX (by far my favorite part had so much fun doing the SFX work), green screen work (shooting and pulling keys), color correction, compression and delivery for a bunch of platforms. 

Flipside Science website with all the lesson plans, or watch all of the videos on YouTube.

Here are the separate links just in-case you might want to share with teachers. 

Our Hungry Planet: Feeding Our Growing Population

 

 Fresh Solutions: Water Use and Conservation

 

Below for lesson plans and individual clips from the show. 

·         Timelapse: Photosynthesis Seen from Space   

·         Why Do Birds Migrate?

·         How Many Planes Are in the Sky?  

·         How Did Human Civilization Spread?

·         How Quickly Do Ships Cross the Oceans? (North America)

·         How Quickly Do Ships Cross the Oceans? (Europe)

·         Take a Virtual Dive in a Kelp Forest

·         The Living Soil Beneath Our Feet

·         How Do Trees Transport Water from Roots to Leaves?

·         Why Do We Have Different Seasons?

Teacher Training: Next Generation Science Standards Demystified

Ongoing "train the trainers" science and engineering videos for K-12 educators. Team of 13 made created this content. Cheryl Vanderbilt and I did all of the video/audio/motion graphics for these but the content is from the Education Department and their staff are the real stars here!  

Here are the Disciplinary Core Ideas:

Crosscuting Concepts: Station Rotation

Anatomy of the Disciplinary Core Ideas

What are Performance Expectations?

If you happen to know a local K-12 educator they might enjoy attending an in-person professional development training program at the Academy.

 

Renewable Energy - Powered by Poop

I did all the graphics for this one including the 3D stuff. I also used ALL the fart sounds in an extensive SFX library. Seriously when can you say that....

Biodiversity Ecosystems and Ecological Networks

The California Academy of Sciences partnered with Khan Academy to promote their Biodiversity course materials. 

Kira edited audio and video for this course on the Khan Academy website, did voice over narration, and designed the transitional elements between animation and video. 

Science Action Club - Citizen Science PSA

Kira wrote, shot, and edited this advertisement for the Science Action Club. 

 

 

Jill Tarter: Chat with an Academy Scientist | California Academy of Sciences

This is an example featuring Jill Tarter, the astrophysicist whose work inspired the movie Contact. 

Kira developed a method for live streaming and video switching to record visiting lecturers at the California Academy of Sciences.

iTunes U Course in Partnership with KQED

This iTunesU course for Earthquakes won an AAM MUSE Award in the spring of 2013. The California Academy of Sciences Educational department, under the project management of Helena Carmena, created the educational content and copywriting for the course. 

Kira's role on the project included preparing a HD crop conversion of Earthquake Evidence of a Restless Planet, a full dome Planetarium show. Kira used Nuket to convert the dome masters to HD space. Next, Kira created a basic 3D camera move. Then she ran the frames on the render farm and converted the color space for HD video standards. Finally, matched audio from a recording by Director Ryan Wyatt, generated a stereo audio mix, compressed and prepared the files for the iTunesU course. In addition Kira did some graphic design work featured in the iTunesU course.