  An introductory Astronomy survey course is often taken to satisfy a college
graduation requirement for non-science majors at colleges around the United
States. In this course, material that can be broadly categorized into topics
related to "the sky", "the Solar System", "the Galaxy", and "cosmology" is
discussed. Even with the wide variety of topics in these categories, though,
students may not be 100% interested in the course content, and it is almost
certain that a specific topic about which a student wishes to learn is not
covered. To at least partly address these issues, to appeal to all of the
students in this class, and to allow students to explore topics of their
choice, a video project has been assigned to students at Albion College as a
class activity. In this assignment, students are asked to create a video of a
famous (or not) astronomer, astronomical object or discovery, or telescope
observatory to present to the class. Students work in pairs to create a video
that is original and imaginative and includes accurate scientific content. For
this project, then, students use a familiar technology and exercise their
creativity while learning a little (or a lot of) science along the way. Herein
data on types and topics of videos, examples of videos, assignment requirements
and grading rubrics, lessons learned, and student comments will be discussed
and shared.
