Last year, one of my students came to see me and told me he was interested in doing stop motion animations.  Since we were going to study space, I suggested to him growing tomato plants from seeds that came from space.  I had obtained the seeds from the tomato sphere program.

http://www.tomatosphere.org/fr/

We did the experiment but what was different is that every day he would come with his iPad and take a picture of the growing plants in addition to recording the results.  He kept the video created since it was done with his personal iPad, but it was quite interesting to watch.  Here’s what it might look like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xiLRvIEYFA

Growing plants in such a way can be done in several grade levels.  It can be done with flowers opening, lettuce growing, sun going down at sunset, with the leaves of the trees changing color.

I cannot dedicate a school iPad for taking pictures that would last more than a few periods but I do have an old old phone that can be used for that purpose and dedicated to take pictures over several days if necessary.

We used iMotionHD app to take the pictures.   Here’s an example of a set up.