Middle School Photography: Help With Material

I am now a volunteer at my daughter's middle school in the photography and year book elective. It turns out that this is the first year they've ever had this elective and the teacher of the class doesn't have particular knowledge about photography, particularly the technology. But she is a science teacher and does have facility for understanding technology although she is more artistic and I am more technical (in some ways.) As a teacher she likes to give clear cut assignments and get back results that can be used to judge the students learning. I would rather explain a technique such as HDR or Panoramas or Macro and turn the kids loose. She is the boss! So, we're trying to find ways to teach the kids, 7th and 8th graders, photography stuff.

She would like me to do "Show and Tell" on technical aspects to start which she can then feed off for assignments. I'm thinking to start with sensors, file formats, RAW/jpeg, aperture, ISO, shutter speed, focal length and then techniques coupled with post processing. I'd love to hear other suggestions, particularly in the way of presentations of the "Show and Tell" style. You can check my gear list ... it is somewhat extensive.

Right now I am trying to research how sensors are made. There are lots of articles but the two things I can't seem to find are: (1) how is the silicon wafer converted into all those separate pixels, and (2) how those millions of pixels are connected electrically to the readout circuitry? If you can point me at online material that isn't too heavy I'd really appreciate it particularly if there are photos I can show.

I expect many of you have done this sort of thing so don't hesitate to share your experience.

I just type in "how does a digital sensor work" at you tube and got all types of videos. You can try asking how they are made.

Here is just a random search. Wish I could have been more helpful.

http://www.cambridgein​colour.com/tutorials/c​amera-sensors.htm

Thanks! I didn't think about YouTube, sigh, I was looking for print articles.

i have no idea how sensors are made.

with that out of the way, photography electives would likely attract the most creative students. It would be a shame to force them into a box of "clear cut assignments" for every project. It's been years since I was in photography school but i still remember pushing the envelope of those type of assignments. I often had to explain to the teacher how my photo met the expectations of the assignment.

Of course I was in my early 20s and had had a 35mm camera in my hands for 10+ years. I wouldn't expect that younger kids (especially in modern american schools) would be comfortable pushing the envelope like that.

While even photographers need to know how to fit their work into the expectations of the client, it would be a shame to not allow some projects with very loose requirements that allow the student to express their creativity.

And you can tell the teacher I said that!

All I really needed was this. Found some info about the RGB squares. That is pretty easy. Each pixel (photocell) is like a cup. For every exposure it fills with water and then is dumped. Same as the photocell. Light fills the cup, it is dumped and turned into an electrical signal which creates the image. If the cup is half full the shot is underexposed, if over filled it is overexposed.

I have read more but personally I don't really care about getting into the molecular level . I just know how it works and that is good enough. If you want endless threads and arguments on this at the molecular visit DPreview. Yawn.

Just my personal opinion. I'd keep it pretty simple with that age group. Their brains are like sponges but their attention span may not be where you want it to be. Little bits of basics until you get to the important stuff like ISO, shutter, aperture, etc. I may be wrong because I don't know kids these days. I know 7 year olds can trouble shoot a computer faster than I can on my best day so I may be way off.

Dwight, can we assume that the kids already have the basic understanding of how a camera works, i.e. aperture, shutter speed, exposure, etc.? If not, I would start there rather than diving right into the internals of a digital cameras. As their first project, have them build a pinhole camera out a shoe box. They can cut a rectangular opening on the side opposite where the pin hole is and cover it with wax paper so that they can see the image projected on to it from the pin hole.

oh you gotta check out http://cambridgeincolo​ur.com/

i haven't looked specifically for sensor tech, but if they don't have it I'd be very surprised.

Good site, He's.