Carol Denning-Broadus, Associate Instructor, has always used creative projects to engage her students with complex scientific concepts. In the past, her Introduction to Anthropology courses (ANTH U102) asked students to create analog board games to convey information about rites of passage in different cultures. Today, she uses Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools to enable students to envision new worlds.
In Environmental Science (BIOL U270), Broadus invites students to view Avatar: The Way of the Water through a scientific lens. Students analyze the fictional ecosystems in class, then they use Microsoft CoPilot, ChatGPT, or other GenAI image generators to create new creatures that could be at home in the environment of the planet Pandora. The students’ creations often look like they could step right out of a video game.
Students work with GenAI to describe the features that will make their creatures into apex predators, prey species, or vegetation within the Pandoran oceans or landscapes. Students then write a report describing their creature’s environmental adaptations, food sources, and other features that make their creations a productive part of the ecosystems on the world of Pandora.
Bonus Tip: If you regularly use ChatGPT to make images, your images are saved in one place, in your ChatGPT Image Library.
Thank you to professor Broadus, former Bill Drake Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member of the Year, for sharing her inspiring assignment ideas!