Eighth Grade Public Service Announcement (“PSA”) Project

For this project you will work with a group of 4 to 5 students in your class to create a public service announcement.

A PSA can take many forms: a TV ad, a page or small ad in a magazine, or an ad on the radio. On television, a PSA is a 10, 15, 30 or sometimes 60-second video. PSA’s are not commercials, because they are not selling anything. A PSA may give you advice, or it may remind or warn you about something. PSA’s can be related to your health and well-being, your community, education, or the environment.

In this project, you will research, design and film a PSA for a UIM student audience. Your PSA group will be assigned a disease in science class. Your PSA will provide information about the disease as well as multiple ways to avoid getting the disease. Your PSA should last between 1 and 3 minutes; it will be filmed in class between Dec. 21, 2009 and Dec. 23, 2009. A detailed filming schedule will be provided to you in class once you have been assigned to a disease group.

In addition to filming your PSA, you will also need to turn in hard copies of any documents that you may have used to create your PSA. These documents should include four primary documents about the disease that you have gathered, as well two sets of data that you have researched. These documents must be in a folder and are to be turned in to your ELA teacher on the day you film your PSA. If you do not have these documents available on your scheduled filming date, you will not be able to film, and you will receive a grade of zero (“0”) for this project.

This project will count towards your Cycle 3 project grades in ELA, Science, Social Studies, and Mathematics. Each content area teacher will grade your PSA according to the attached rubrics. Please make sure to review each rubric carefully so that you are aware of the criteria required for this task.

Examples of PSA’s may be found at the Ad Council website: http://www.adcouncil.org/. The Ad Council is the leading producer of PSA’s since 1942.

A brief description of what each content area is looking for can be found on the other side of this page:

Content-Specific Expectations

Math
You will track some data related to numbers of infected people in a population over a period of time. Identify the population and range of time clearly. The population you study could be the entire world, or it could be just one country or region. You must include at least five (5) data points, and they must be at regular intervals (ex. every month, every six months, every year, etc.).
Identify the estimated number of people in the population that are infected at each data point. Also, identify the percent of the total population that is estimated to be infected at each data point.
Organize your data in tables. You should use two tables: one for the numbers of infected people at each time interval and one for the percentages at each time interval.
You will create two graphs. Graph the number of infections over time on one graph, and graph the percentages on another.
Discuss your findings, analyze your graphs, and make inferences. Identify some part of one graph where things changed rapidly or suddenly. Hypothesize. What might have been the cause? What data supports this hypothesis?
ELA
Scholars are studying author’s purpose and persuasive writing techniques. For this project scholars are to utilize the persuasive writing techniques learned to persuade their classmates to adopt behaviors that prevent disease. Scholars will be graded on how clearly they present their opinion(s) as well as how they support those opinions. Scholars’ use of persuasive techniques, tone, organization and language will also be taken into account.
Science / Social Studies
Thoroughly research your assigned disease. The following information about your disease must be included in your public service announcement:
Background Information:
·  What are the causes and symptoms of this disease?
·  What are the ways that this disease can be treated by a doctor?
·  How common is this disease and who is most likely to suffer from it?
Homeostasis:
·  What is homeostasis?
·  How does this disease result in a loss of homeostasis?
Immune System:
·  Does the immune system respond to this disease?
·  If so, how does the immune system respond?
·  If not, why can’t the immune system respond?
Prevention:
·  How can people who are at risk protect themselves from this disease?
·  Describe at least 2-3 detailed steps that people can take to prevent the development or transmission of this disease / Documents are required for any kind of research. For your disease project, documents could take the form of articles, studies, accounts of people with the disease or graphs and charts showing data about the disease. You will need to hand in at least four (4) different documents that you use in your disease research. At least two of these documents must be primary and two must be secondary.
Primary Source Examples
·  First hand account of someone with a disease
·  Video of someone talking about life with the disease
·  A doctor discussing the disease and its impacts
Secondary Source Examples
·  A newspaper or magazine article about the disease
·  A chart, graph or study about the disease
·  A documentary about the disease
Your documents must all be related and relevant to the disease that your project is on.
Your documents are due the day of your video presentation.