Winners announced in 'The Sky's Not Falling' video-essay contest
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=62598
The first-place essay is titled "Al Gore Causes Global Warming in School Aged Brains" and is by Russell Young, of Minnesota:
If Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth," is suitable for teaching about climatology, then Alfred Hitchcock's film the "The Birds," is a good candidate for teaching ornithology.
"Wait a moment," you say. What does a horror film which has been characterized as "extremely disturbing," where hoards of normally skittish, but peaceable birds, inexplicably attack and terrorize humans, have to teach our children about science? The answer, of course is that it could be used to anesthetize them to the frightening scenarios presented in Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."
It's hard to decide which would be worse: frightening young students with scripted terror from a horror master, or frightening students with scripted propaganda from an environmental hypocrite. But think of the box office draw potential by making a double header out of these two movies. Plus, each film is steeped with enough gut wrenching scenes to keep even the most jaded students interested, making them a perfect antidote to typically boring science fare.
In "The Birds," one scene shows children helplessly driven to terrified flight as birds relentlessly descend upon them. A particularly graphic moment depicts a bird tearing at the face of a screaming boy of about 8 or 9 years of age. Such viewing should make an indelible impression upon the minds of our youth as to the importance of not interfering with nature.
In Gore's film we are treated to equally stomach turning cinematography as the director treats us to numerous close-ups of Gore, thus making it clear how serious minded he is about the environment. We know he is the man who can make a change because of the repeated shots showing adoring masses who seemingly follow him around the globe. Let's just hope they don’t all do it on their own personal jets.
All of this, however, got me to thinking. Maybe schools could begin to utilize more Hollywood offerings. Think about it. For only the cost of a Blockbuster rental our students minds could be opened up to myriad realms.
Here are just a few other films schools might use for their teaching curriculums. "The Polar Express" could be used for instruction on transportation systems. "Borat" is a perfect teaching tool for understanding how the Democratic Party uses focus groups. "Alien," could be used to teach students about anatomy and homeland security, all at the same time.
"Far fetched," you say. Maybe, but "Moby Dick" taught me all I ever needed to know about whales, and I'm a marine biologist.
