Last night, my husband and I went to see Earth, the first in the Disney Nature series. If you haven’t seen a trailer, the film follows three animal families (polar bears, elephants, and humpback whales) across the Earth and over the course of a year.

Fans of the Planet Earth series will recognize much of the footage from the original program. Even so, seeing the images on the big screen will still be spectacular.

Not having seen the Planet Earth series (yet), I was amazed by the landscapes and species portrayed in the film. However, I couldn’t help but watch as a science educator – and was left with mixed feelings about the film as a whole.

First and foremost, the film does an incredible job of showcasing the awe-inspiring, dramatic, and sometimes humorous sides of nature. I was impressed with the enormous herds of caribou and flocks of migrating birds. We laughed at the baby ducks attempting their first flight and at the monkeys navigating the seasonal flooding of the Okavango Delta in Botswana. We marveled at the size of the Great White sharks and the beauty of the landscapes.

For me, though, the film’s highlight was a time-lapse sequence of sea ice forming around the Antarctic continent. I’ve obviously read a lot about sea ice for my work with Beyond Penguins, and it was amazing to actually see the slushy grease ice turn to pancake ice and then gradually solidify into large sheets.

The real beauty of these types of productions is that they allow us to experience parts of our world that we will never be able to see for ourselves. The photographers and producers deserve highest credit for enthralling us with reality in an age of video games and “reality” television.

I also felt that the script did a good job of introducing the notion of systems and cycles: the global water cycle, ocean’s influence on weather and climate, seasonal change. The information is seamlessly blended into the narratives of the animal families. Your students might even learn something without realizing it!

However, this does not mean that the film is without its problems. Much eye-rolling was to be had over the film’s tendency to anthropomorphize (give human characteristics to) the creatures depicted – even going as far to compare a polar bear cub wandering off to children that don’t always listen to their mothers! Educational research has shown that students do tend to give human characteristics to plants and animals, so this seemed particularly problematic.

The film has also been criticized for its avoidance of the violent side of nature. While predator-prey relationships are shown (some escape, others do not), the actual killing scenes are omitted. While I didn’t particularly want to see the blood and guts, I know that by not including these details, we are presenting a distorted view of nature to children.

For me, the most disappointing aspect of the film was its lack of a clear conservationist message. Each of the three families clearly faced challenges related to climate change – melting sea ice, desertification, deforestation, and warming oceans, and so on. While the script mentioned these environmental issues, it did not provide any reason for why these problems were occurring. Will students connect these issues to human actions? It seemed that there was a missed opportunity to challenge viewers to make choices that conserve resources and protect the amazing creatures we’d just observed.
All in all, though, I feel that this film is a valuable teaching tool when used as just that – one of many tools to promote student understanding. It would be a great hook to engage students in learning about animal characteristics, habitats, adaptations, and current environmental issues. As always, being aware of possible misconceptions and anthropomorphism will help you craft thought-provoking questions and discussion topics that will help students maximize the learning experience.

Want to extend students’ understanding of polar bears? Beyond Penguins has featured a number of science and literacy lessons and activities about the marine mammals in our magazine and blog. Polar Bears International is also a great resource for information on the species and conservation efforts.

Would you like to teach about humpbacks and other whales? Stay tuned for our May 2009 issue, Polar Oceans! Our Feature Story discusses blue whales, which follow a similar migration pattern. Related whale activities are provided.

Unfortunately, we don’t have African elephant resources in our magazine, but Disney does have downloadable education guides on their Earth web site.

Have you seen Earth? Used it in your classroom? We’d love to hear your reactions and teaching suggestions!