Documentary Reviews: Student Work

I have decided to track the progress of three students throughout the unit to offer a feel for the student perspective throughout. I will refer to them as Student 1, Student 2, and Student 3 (creative, I know!) and will post their work here on the blog under those psuedonyms. The Documentary Reviews were due Friday, so I will start there. 

I have chosen these three particular students because the topics they have chosen to research are vastly different from one another, and I believe their Final Projects will demonstrate the diversity of topics chosen by the greater class. Student 1 has chosen research how to make the best macaroons. Student 2 is exploring the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on teenagers. Student 3 is looking into the Fermi Paradox, the conflict between the extreme likelyhood that life exists outside of Earth and the lack of evidence to support that theory. I'm already intrigued by their topic choices! 

Please see the previous post for information about Documentary Review requirements. I had created a video example, but I allowed students to choose whether they wanted to deliver the review via video or written in MLA format. Students 1 and 3 chose to write their reviews:

Student 1: Making Macaroons

To begin, my project is about the journey of making a macaroon and the difficult tasks you will encounter when making this pastry.

In the first video I watch, Jamie from the channel called Anti-Chef is very confident towards the beginning. Jamie describes the texture of a macaroon as “crumbly on the outside and chewy on the inside” and “fancy-pants Oreos”. Jamie states that macaroons can also get confused with another pastry with the same name, but it is a coconut pastry. Jamie uses Food Network as a source to get the recipe. Jamie instead of making traditional flavors like Chocolate or vanilla he decides to go with Raspberry cheesecake and blueberry which to me it is a bit advanced. Meanwhile, he is explaining the process of how to make the pastry he then realizes that he forgets the cream tarter and instead uses a substitute. Jamie explains how it is difficult to pull apart the egg yolk from the egg white to make the meringue and when you’re whisking the egg white the outcome needs to have stiff peaks, so when you are doing the upside-down test the meringue won’t fall on top of your head. When he is done making the cookie, he takes it out from the oven, and they are not even close to looking like a macaroon there for he failed on his first attempt. 

Next, the second video that I watch was Jamie again, but this was his second attempt. This time Jamie is very determined to make the perfect macaroon. Jamie says that you must be precise with the ingredients like the eggs need to be at a certain temperature or else you will ruin the recipe since macaroons are very delicate and fragile. Jamie puts the dry ingredients and then explains when you are done mixing the egg whites, they need to be white and frothy after you are done with that process. When it comes to food coloring Jamie prefers to use gel food coloring because the liquid makes the mixture too watery, and macaroons have a unique balance that it needs to have the perfect amount of liquid and dry ingredients. Jamie uses a technique when he is mixing the dry ingredients and the meringue, which is called macaronge and once you are done you should test the mixture by doing a figure eight test which consists of watching the eight not sink into the mixture. Jamie says that he is positive because he learns from his mistakes and states that when the cameras are off you tend to do better. When baking the macaroon, you must keep an eye on them to see if the feet from the cookie arise. This time Jamie finally succeeds.

Lastly, the last video I watch was once again Jamie on his third attempt, but this time Jamie has new tools, and techniques and did not use recipes from the web since there difficult to understand. This time Jamie quickly gets everything set and knows what he is doing, unlike the first time when it took him five minutes to get to the next step. This time he adds the eggs to the dry ingredients first. Once he has the mixture ready, he makes the one-inch circles, but since there were many air bubbles, he adds sprinkles to hide his errors. He bakes them and adds a filling. Once again, he successfully makes macarons.

My thoughts about these short videos were you won’t always get the recipe right the first time for example Jamie didn’t even know how to mix the ingredients because there’s a certain technique you need to follow it’s like riding your bike for the first time without training wheels you fall because you don’t know how to ride it perfectly. These videos will help me with my research by not only focusing on the type of ingredients needed but the process of making the pastry because I feel like most people do not focus on that often.

In the end, I feel like these videos could have had some encouragement towards the end like making the viewer more confident since most of the time Jamie was upset for every little error he did, but he did state that he does learn from his mistakes. Jamie did succeed but he did struggle to get the perfect macaroon.

Student 2: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

(Not yet turned in)

Student 3: The Fermi Paradox

The documentary starts out with the question an introduction that introduces us to the idea of the Fermi Paradox, and some broad theories that are involved in it. With this brief introduction, the documentary then moves into an interview with Stephen Webb, a science fiction author who has studied the topic, and the interviewer. They start off the interview by talking about the advancement from the detection of electromagnetic waves to gravitational waves, and the possible manipulation of the phenomenon to send messages or signals to other civilizations in the galaxy. They talk about the level of development alien civilizations could have already reached – the Kardashev scale – considering how old the universe is, and how it would be theoretically possible for those gravitational waves to be used as radio waves. This leads them into two possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox: the undetectability of aliens due to their technology being far above ours, or the unpredictability of the waves causes all civilization to live in a constant state of “was that a signal, or a regular gravitational wave?” Next, they touch on the topic of interstellar space travel or even communication by using pulses from neutron stars as a GPS signal, or modifying them to communicate with other civilizations. They bring up the topic of modernity bias and how it could affect how we perceive alien life and technology to be, and how that may affect the possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox.

        Here, they move away from the technological part of the Fermi Paradox, and focus on the possible effects of the development of life itself on the Fermi Paradox. This includes the theories on the original chance of abiogenesis – life developing – occurring, and the evolution of prokaryotic life to eukaryotic life being very low. This brings up the possibility of a shadow biosphere, a microbial ecosystem that is home to microorganisms that are likely prokaryotic. An undetectable world that is too microscopic for us, the rare chance of life developing beyond the prokaryotic point, is thus proposed as another solution to the Fermi Paradox. They touch on some of the fundamental elements of life – carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur – and the possibility of the replacement of one of these elements with another element. Arsenic or silicon have been popular contenders as possibilities for elements that may support life. This brings up the final possibility proposed in the interview: the possibility that aliens may not necessarily want to leave their planet, because the foundations of life on another planet may be completely different. The documentary wraps up with Stephen Webb explaining how his interest in the Fermi Paradox was aroused.

            I really liked the documentary. One of the best parts about it is that it is really informative. It touches on a variety of topics that are involved with the Fermi Paradox, including the scale and development of the universe, the possible development of life, the involvement of technology, the biases that contribute to some of the possible answers of the Fermi Paradox. The interviewer was also very interactive with the interviewee, and you can tell that both of them are really interested in the topic. I feel their enthusiasm also contributed to how interesting the topics they talked about are. They really cause me to think, and look into some of the terms and principles brought up in the interview. For example, the specific part where they talked about the chances of the evolution of life and the change from prokaryotic to eukaryotic life was really interesting to me. It’s because it raises the possibility that life itself is rare, and that it may not be as common as perceived. I find contradictory theories like this really interesting. The possibility that multiple genesis has occurred, and that other life exists as a “shadow biosphere” so microscopic it is undetectable causes me to wonder what really causes life. Is life really as plentiful as we believe? Or is it a rare fluke in the universe? The discussions cause me to think about these questions and want to look into the topic more. All of these factors make the documentary really helpful for me. I can glean a lot of information from it.

            The documentary was very successful in its purpose to both inform and arouse my interest in the topic of the Fermi Paradox. It was packed with useful information relevant to my topic, and the interviewer and interviewee were very enthusiastic and interacted with each other. There were some flaws in the documentary, but the background of the documentary was the clearest. It was rather monotonous, sometimes a little confusing. I’d listen to the interview and try to understand what exactly was being shown on the screen, but it was sometimes quite confusing to understand was the images were trying to visualize. They could try to make the images shown more impactful to the interview, adding on to the success of the documentary.