Fire & Forestry: Engaging Students with Today’s Environmental Challenges
Join us for the first of our 2026 Ambassador Capstone Webinars featuring brand new resources to teach wildfire, forest ecosystems, climate resilience, and conservation
Looking for engaging resources to teach wildfire, forest ecosystems, climate resilience, and conservation?
Join four educators as they share their brand new classroom-tested lessons inspired by Science Communication Lab films and discuss how storytelling can serve to anchor students’ engagement and inquiry-based learning.
Leave with practical strategies, hands-on student activities, and free NGSS-aligned resources for biology and environmental science classrooms.
Sign up for free or login on our website to access the resources featured in this webinar along with our library of award-winning films.
Wondering how to use an SCL film in your classroom, but aren’t sure where to start? Our easy-to-use 5E lesson plan recipe helps you transform any SCL short film or feature segment into an engaging, 1-class period activity that brings authentic science stories and practices to life.
You’ll walk away with low-prep, ready-to-use resources—like CER, Talking Chips, and modeling protocols—that you can prepare in just a day and use with any film tomorrow.
Register for free to join us. Attend to get the webinar slides, 18x downloadable worksheets, and a Certificate of Completion!
Webinar facilitated by Ariel Raymond
Hosted by the Science Communication Lab: Sign up for a free educator account to access the resources featured in this webinar along with our library of award-winning films.
Kickstart the school year with classroom-ready lessons to develop your students’ foundational science skills!
In this interactive webinar, you’ll explore three teacher-tested, NGSS-aligned lessons along with eight engaging activities that spark curiosity, strengthen scientific thinking, and connect students with the authentic stories and practices of real scientists.
Whether you teach elementary, middle, or high school science, you’ll walk away with practical, easy-to-implement resources to build science skills that last all year long.
Webinar facilitated by Ariel Raymond, with special guests Susan Bartol and Christine Girtain
“Join host Dr. Fanuel Muindi from CAMD for this virtual screening and conversation with Executive Producer Dr. Sarah Goodwin, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker with over a decade of experience building and leading mission-driven organizations at the intersection of science, media, and learning.
Story Craft is a National Geographic Society-funded webinar series, which brings together communication researchers and practitioners to explore evidence-based storytelling. Story Craft is a collaboration between Dr. Reyhaneh Maktoufi and the Science Communication Lab.
The next session on May 26th from 12 to 1 PM ET features Drs. Emily Howell, Nicky Krause, and Sarah Goodwin, who formed a research–practice partnership at the Science Communication Lab to develop a comprehensive study on how diverse audiences relate to and understand scientists through documentary film. The award-winning film that emerged from that partnership, Observer, examines how observation is a fundamental human experience essential to how we understand our world, and also forms the basis of scientific inquiry.
Science educators! 🔎 Looking for fresh ways to bring science to life with FREE story-driven films and resources?
Join us on January 8 at 7pm ET | 4pm PT for our webinar: Hands-On Lesson Plans to Make Science Relevant and Fun!
Hear from fellow educators and SCL Ambassadors using our award-winning films to spark curiosity and deepen learning. They’ll share their innovative, ready-to-use lesson plans, including: 🦠 Bacterial evolution board game 🧬 Pipe-cleaner DNA modeling 🌳 Pros & cons of genetic engineering in conservation 🌺 Connecting oral traditions and scientific knowledge 🐦 Animal behavior case studies
Whether you teach middle school, high school, or college, you’ll walk away with new strategies and free resources to boost engagement.
Through guided discussion, interactive reflection, and evidence-based strategies, you’ll explore how film can spark conversations around nature of science and broaden students’ perspectives of who scientists are.
SCL’s Executive Director Sarah Goodwin & Associate Researcher Emily Howell will give a short virtual talk at Science Talk ’25 from Association of Science Communicators about “What does it take to collaborate? Relationship insights from a sci-comm research-filmmaking partnership“
Coming Home will screen on Saturday, March 22, 2025 at the MíraLA Film Festival.
“The MíraLA Film Festival (MFF) showcases the work of independent women of color filmmakers amidst the beautiful backdrop of southern California. MFF is about women of color, filmmakers, audiences and film professionals establishing a relationship and supporting underrepresented filmmakers in film.” Learn more and see the full festival program here.
Join us at the 15th Anniversary of the Athena Film Festival for an in person screening of Decoding Ancestral Knowledge with a Q&A with the Co-Directors Ruth Lichtman and Sharon Shattuck!
You can also stream the festival program all weekend long from March 6-9. Learn more and buy passes at the festival’s official website: https://aff25.eventive.org/films
Join us at the FREE Braga Science Film Fest from November 16 – November 23 for a fantastic programme of science shorts! Our film will play on Saturday November 23 and be available for 24 hours. The festival is free to attend but registration is required. More details via the festival website. Portuguese subtitles will be available. Catch the trailer below:
A microbiologista havaiana Kiana Frank leva-nos a um lago sagrado e explica como o conhecimento tradicional e a microbiologia podem trabalhar juntos para nos ajudar a entender como cuidar e gerir a terra.
Short film blocks will be virtually available for viewing from Monday, November 4th to Thursday, November, 7th. Please register for each block of short films you wish to view via the Eventbrite links in the schedule. You must register for these events in advance in order to receive the private YouTube link to view that block.Audience members who have registered before 9:00am will receive the private viewing link that morning, between 9am and 10am. If you registered after 9:00am, you will receive the link by the following day.
Audience members who register for this event will receive an email with a private YouTube link to view the films in Block 3 (below).
Bloque #3 – Documentales cortos (64 min)
La Generación de la Recuperación. Documental. España 24min.
En un viaje del sur al norte de la vasta provincia de Burgos, LA GENERACIÓN DE LA REGENERACIÓN pinta un fresco del mundo rural castellano y de los principales problemas que acechan a sus pobladores y pobladoras a través de diversos proyectos productivos y sociales que tienen como eje principal el desarrollo sostenible y el respeto por el entorno. Un viaje temporal que se articula alrededor de una cuestión: ¿qué podemos aprender del pasado para construir un futuro sostenible?
[ENG] In a journey from the south to the north of the vast province of Burgos, THE GENERATION OF REGENERATION paints a fresco of the Castilian rural world and the main problems that threaten its inhabitants through various productive and social projects that have as their axis sustainable development and respect for the environment. A time journey that is articulated around a question: what can we learn from the past to build a sustainable future?
Querida abuela, Maruja. Documental. España. 29 min.
Nacho, en pleno confinamiento al dar positivo en COVID, recibe una llamada de su padre: su abuela ha muerto. Poco después, vuelve a casa y su padre le da una cinta de VHS con imágenes inéditas de su abuela y su familia. Nacho, junto a sus primos Rubén y Tomás, decide documentar con su cámara la búsqueda de un reproductor de VHS para ver la cinta de vídeo por primera vez. Los tres primos regresan a la casa de playa donde pasaban los veranos cuando eran niños, con la esperanza de encontrar en ella el reproductor y así despedirse de su querida abuela Maruja. Desde la experiencia de grabar este reencuentro familiar, Nacho, Rubén y Tomás tratarán de reconectar con su familia y conocer mejor a su abuela.
[ENG] Nacho, during confinement after testing positive for COVID, receives a call from his father: his grandmother has died. Shortly after, he returns home, and his father gives him a VHS tape with unpublished images from his grandmother and family. Nacho, alongside his cousins Ruben and Tomas, decides to film with his camera the search for a VHS player to see the tape for the first time. The three cousins return to the beach house where they spent their summer as kids, hoping to find the VHS player and say goodbye to their grandmother Maruja. From the experience of recording the family reunion, Nacho, Rubén, and Tomás will try to reconnect with their family and try to know better their grandmother.
Coming Home. Mónica Feliú-Mójer. Puerto Rico/USA. 10:19 min.
“Coming Home” is a short documentary following Dr. Mónica Feliú Mójer as she returns to Puerto Rico to serve as the emcee of the national conference of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). The film showcases her upbringing in a rural working class community and how it instilled values of equity, justice, solidarity, and collective care that drive her science communication and engagement work today.”
