Activities With A Digital Camera

LEARNING ACTIVITIES 

As a curriculum tool, digital cameras add a multimedia 

dimension to learning. Placing a digital camera in the 

hands of a K-12 student or teacher unleashes creativity 

and opens up new possibilities for all areas of the education 

spectrum. Beyond simply recording events, digital images

transform documents, presentations, and communications 

into personalized, custom productions. Using software such as 

PowerPoint or HyperStudio, projects come alive with digital 

photos that showcase school activities. Students quickly master 

the art of shooting photos and recording them on a video 

cassette recorder to share their learning in class, at home, or far 

beyond through network technologies. 

Documents created on a computer can include digital 

photos for making activity sheets illustrating maps or 

science equipment, posters of sports positions or 

choreography, iron- on transfers of national flags, 

creative crests with faces, and photos of community 

events. Students can write stories accompanied by 

photos they shoot. Video productions incorporating

 digital images directly from the camera can be produced 

instantly and dubbed with a student speech or music 

track from the school band. These products can be 

shared in class or with broader audiences via e-mail or the 

Web. Presentations can be used at the annual "Open House" 

to show parents what their children are learning at school. 

Sample Applications: 

During a class field trip to the zoo, elementary 

school students can take turns photographing animals 

with the digital camera. Back in the classroom, the 

images from the digital camera can be imported into 

something like HyperStudio. The students can then 

create a booklet in the form of an animal alphabet. In 

this activity, students might illustrate each letter of the 

alphabet with a different animal and description. 

Poster-size pages from the animal alphabet could be 

hung in the room, and a copy of the booklet might be 

sent to the zoo with the thank you letter from the 

class. 

During the study of geometry, middle school students 

photograph objects in nature illustrating geometric shapes

and properties.  They build PowerPoint or HyperStudio

presentations of their interpretations of the objects, and 

share their findings with the class. Next, they crop portions

of their photos to create a tessellation or a three- 

dimensional animation of a shape. Such sophisticated 

manipulations are possible for students who have access to 

software like Adobe Photo Shop. 

A high school Earth Science class in the mid- 

west can take an electronic field trip to the beach or the 

mountains by accessing the Intranet or Internet web site 

created with images taken by a class keypal. The 

photographs e-mailed from the remote site can be 

instantly added to an HTML document that describes 

the sights, links to a glossary of scientific terms, and 

asks follow-up questions about the geologic features 

seen in the pictures. Each student can choose an image 

and use a program like Photo Shop to produce a 360 

degree panorama of an area. 

The elementary social studies students use their 

digital camera while studying local history. To show their 

understanding of the past of their area, the students take 

pictures of local historical sites, important people in the 

community, and portrayals of past events. The photos are 

assembled into a large mural for display in the school and 

local community site such as public library, city hall or 

post office. The mural could even become the featured 

illustration for a local publication, publicity campaign, or 

banner. 

At the completion of food and nutrition unit, 

the Health/Consumer Sciences class in the middle school 

uses digital images to demonstrate knowledge of food 

groups and a healthy diet. Students photograph a variety 

of foods and packages to make a game in which the object 

is to arrange the food pictures into healthy meals. The class 

uses the game to teach the neighborhood preschool children 

about proper eating habits. The unit culminates with a health 

party where the older student prepare snacks for the younger 

children, and take pictures of them eating healthy food. 

Over the course of the marking period, as each art project is 

completed, high school students use a digital camera to 

photograph their work. As the grading period draws to a close, 

each student evaluates the pieces he or she has created and 

assembles the best into an individual electronic portfolio or 

gallery for assessment. The teacher or the class might select 

images of outstanding class projects to be viewed as a digital art 

gallery on the school's Intranet.