Argument I argue through an analysis of spectacle that the relationship between wildlife documentary films' entertainment and educational mandates is complex and co-constitutive. Accuracy-based criticism of wildlife films reveals assumptions of a deficit model of science communication and positions spectacle as an external commercial pressure influencing the genre. Using the Planet Earth (2006) series as a case study, I describe spectacle's prominence within the recent blue-chip renaissance in wildlife film, resulting from technological innovations and twenty-first-century consumer and broadcast market contexts. I connect spectacle in contemporary wildlife films to its relevant precursors within natural history, situating spectacle as a central feature of natural history display designed to inspire awe and wonder in audiences. I show that contemporary documentary spectacle is best understood as an opportunity for affective knowing rather than a constraint on accuracy; as a result, spectacle contributes to the virtuous inter-reinforcement of entertainment and education at work in blue-chip wildlife films.
Making‐of documentaries (MODs) for recent blue‐chip wildlife films are prominently featured as trailers, bonus features on DVD releases and websites, and televised segments within wildlife broadcasts. Prior research shows how MODs within mainstream cinema promote certain filmmakers as auteurs and as exceptional creative professionals. Earlier wildlife film MODs demonstrated filmmakers' mastery of nature and a licence to offer scientific knowledge, as well as many staging practices employed in wildlife filmmaking; this content moved to MODs as nature grew more pristine in wildlife films' main programming. Recent wildlife film MODs still celebrate filmmakers' professionalism and emphasize the remoteness of film locations, filmmakers' exceptional practical skills and scientific expertise under harsh conditions, and the technologies responsible for spectacular visuals. In the MOD for Chimpanzee (2012), these features work together to portray this wildlife species as challenging to locate and film in nature, accessible only by filmmakers with the right skills and technologies. I argue that current blue‐chip wildlife MODs are a performance of authentic, non‐interventionist filmmaking. Recent MODs increase viewers' behind‐the‐scenes access to filming conditions but have not disclosed certain staging practices such as the use of composite animal characters. Despite their prominence as marketing and peripheral material, MODs remain segregated from wildlife films' main programming. They contribute to a blue‐chip construction of nature as pristine and not inclusive of human beings, even though their expeditionary narratives show more complex human–nature interactions. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Design thinking is a powerful platform that provides the structure and process to measure integrated experiential learning (IEL). IEL situates the activities of experiential learning in an interdisciplinary setting that facilitates learning through reflection on experiences that engage deep knowledge in broad applications and span co-curricular and curricular environments. Using courses developed at two institutions as case studies, the authors describe pedagogy, instruction, and assessment methods, and focus the data types, collection, analysis, and implications of three assessment approaches (reflections, networks, and deliverables). They show how design thinking is essential to the assessment of IEL in courses and across institutional stakeholders, including student and academic affairs, alumni relations, employers and local businesses, and those focused on data for improvement in design (e.g., institutional research and legislators). Moreover, they show that the assessment phase of design thinking is essential to sustainability, scalability, and rigor of design thinking IEL projects.
This study explores a case of coaching deployed in experiential, interdisciplinary, and project-based courses. This study follows coaching in two courses that operated on a high-impact practice framework. In these courses, coaching was experienced by both students and faculty as a critical feature of the success of the courses. Students showed that coaching impacted their sense of the gravity of course content, their ownership of student-designed work, their relationships with faculty, and their experience of place-based learning. Faculty indicated that the coaching promoted transdisciplinary course planning, while their teaching benefited student engagement. We recommend practices for coaching that can support gains for students and faculty in experiential, project-based, interdisciplinary courses.
There is no subscription or membership fee. Spontaneous Generations provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.* The authors would like to thank Agnes Bolinska and Isaac Record for their helpful advice.Ari Gross is a PhD candidate at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. His primary research is on the history and philosophy of diagrams of "invisible" objects, although he also holds a strong interest in anatomical representations. He is also co-curator of the University of Toronto Scientific Instrument Collection (www.utsic.org).Eleanor Louson is a PhD student in Science and Technology Studies at York University. Her current research deals with wildlife films and their representation of animal behaviour.
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