Infographics: The New 5-Paragraph Essay
Brittany Ann Kos, Elizabeth Sims · 2014
The STEM Career Infographic Project (SCIP) was a 5-week exploratory project deployed in an 8th grade classroom at Mountain Vista Middle School (MVMS) in the spring of 2014. Students were required to research a STEM career in-depth, then report on their careers using infographics, in lieu of a standard 5-paragraph essay. SCIP was broken down into 9 days of instruction: introduction, research, three days of design lecture, three work days, and a final presentation day. The students were in the lab working on their infographics every day. We observed that infographics were better suited than traditional essays in areas that involved creativity and visual appeal, limited writing for ESL (English as a Second Language) students, fostering and appealing to student’s interests, and overall student enjoyment. Some of the negative obstacles we encountered revolved around limitations of