Create the next great wildlife documentary with National Geographic’s Wildlife Filmmaker
February 12, 2009
Okay, well maybe not the next great documentary, but you can have loads of fun with National Geographic’s Wildlife Filmmaker. The Wildlife Filmmaker allows you to create custom nature films with animal clips, sounds, and more. No account is required to begin creating movies, so it’s a perfect resource to introduce elementary students to the worlds of nature and movie making. There are a ton of clips to choose from, including clips of African Civets (a common African mammal resembling a raccoon) to Zebras. Dozens of sound clips and even more music clips add to the fun.
Creating a movie is a breeze with Wildlife Filmmaker. Simply drag and drop each clip onto the timeline and the movie is created automatically. Kids can also add captions to describe the scenes they’ve created. The only negative aspect of this excellent tool is that there is no way to embed the movies into a blog or wiki. However, you can email an invitation to view your movie, which can be saved for later retrieval (you’re provided a retrieval code when you select this option.)
All in all, National Geographic’s Wildlife Filmmaker is an immensely fun way to introduce students not only to nature and wildlife, but to a bit of filmmaking as well. Kids will have a blast adding the video and sound clips to their films and who knows, maybe you’ll discover you have the next Steve Irwin or Jacques Cousteau in your class. -JERRY SWIATEK
National Geographic’s Wildlife Filmmaker
Related stuff:
Fun facts about animals at Natural History Notebooks
EEK! – Environmental education for kids is nothing to be afraid of
