Can Upper Secondary School Students Effectively Learn about the Occurrence and Movement of Clouds from Time-Lapse Video Shot Using Their Own Devices?

Abstract

Clouds are a familiar phenomenon, but there are few opportunities to observe them in the classroom. In this study, students were asked to take time-lapse movies of clouds using their own personal devices to investigate whether they could capture the characteristics of clouds, with special regard to their movement and development. The students were asked to take videos on any given day in autumn, when cloud movement is relatively easy to capture, using their own devices, and to present the characteristics of the clouds that could gathered from the videos. The results of the analysis of the videos and the students’ presentations showed that 82% of the learners were able to operate the devices related to video recording without any problems, suggesting that students who are familiar with the operation of devices at the high school level are indeed capable of using their own devices for such observations. However, when video is taken using individual devices, it is not always possible to obtain video that is easy to view as a teaching material. It is advisable for instructors to understand what characteristics of clouds each student tends to focus on from the video obtained. Compared to ordinary sky observation, it was easier to capture the movement and development of clouds in time-lapse videos, and, although 100% of the students were able to record the movement and 84% were further able to capture the development of clouds, it was clear that students were less likely to focus on these features unless the instructor specifically instructed them on what features to observe. One of the reasons for this may be a lack of experience in observing the movement and development of clouds in the actual sky; it is thus desirable to incorporate activities wherein students observe actual conditions using moving images, rather than only using classroom experiments.