STEAM Heroes: Inventors, Explorers, and Changemakers, Grades 4-6
Discover the people behind the breakthroughs. Then tell their stories like a filmmaker.
8 class sessions, 1.5 hours per class (12 hours of instruction)
October 1 - November 19
Thursdays, 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. PST
Course Description:
Every great discovery has a story, and usually a curious, persistent human being behind it. In this interactive online workshop, young writers become researchers, screenwriters, narrators, and editors as they investigate a scientist, inventor, artist, engineer, mathematician, or explorer whose ideas changed how we understand the world.
Instead of compiling a list of facts, students will identify challenges, discoveries, and impact, then shape reliable research into a clear beginning, middle, and end. Each student will combine a written script, images, voice-over narration, sound, titles, and optional interviews to create a short digital mini-documentary. The final class becomes a virtual premiere where students share films that make STEAM feel human, creative, and possible.
Main Course Objectives & Takeaways
Instructor Biography:
Frank Guttler is a media educator, filmmaker, and Owner/Director of Lights, Camera, Learn!, with more than two decades of experience helping young people develop writing, creativity, and media-literacy skills through digital storytelling. Since 2020, he has taught virtual digital storytelling through UCI’s Young Writers Project, helping students transform personal narratives, family histories, and research into finished videos.
His professional background includes educational leadership and program development with the American Film Institute, DIGICOM Learning, the Mobile Film Classroom, and the MY HERO Project, and he is a graduate of California State University, Northridge’s Cinema and Television Arts program. Known to students as “Mr. Frank,” he specializes in making filmmaking accessible, purposeful, and fun because the movie is the evidence, but the making is the learning.
Every great discovery has a story, and usually a curious, persistent human being behind it. In this interactive online workshop, young writers become researchers, screenwriters, narrators, and editors as they investigate a scientist, inventor, artist, engineer, mathematician, or explorer whose ideas changed how we understand the world.
Instead of compiling a list of facts, students will identify challenges, discoveries, and impact, then shape reliable research into a clear beginning, middle, and end. Each student will combine a written script, images, voice-over narration, sound, titles, and optional interviews to create a short digital mini-documentary. The final class becomes a virtual premiere where students share films that make STEAM feel human, creative, and possible.
Main Course Objectives & Takeaways
- Investigate a scientist, inventor, artist, engineer, mathematician, or explorer and discover the human story behind their achievements.
- Build research and media-literacy skills by finding reliable sources, asking strong questions, and giving credit to images and information.
- Transform research into a clear, compelling documentary story with a beginning, middle, and end.
- Learn the creative tools of filmmaking: visual planning, scriptwriting, voice-over narration, sound, and editing.
- Share a completed mini-documentary in a supportive virtual premiere, practicing feedback, revision, confidence, and creative problem-solving along the way.
Instructor Biography:
Frank Guttler is a media educator, filmmaker, and Owner/Director of Lights, Camera, Learn!, with more than two decades of experience helping young people develop writing, creativity, and media-literacy skills through digital storytelling. Since 2020, he has taught virtual digital storytelling through UCI’s Young Writers Project, helping students transform personal narratives, family histories, and research into finished videos.
His professional background includes educational leadership and program development with the American Film Institute, DIGICOM Learning, the Mobile Film Classroom, and the MY HERO Project, and he is a graduate of California State University, Northridge’s Cinema and Television Arts program. Known to students as “Mr. Frank,” he specializes in making filmmaking accessible, purposeful, and fun because the movie is the evidence, but the making is the learning.