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What is an issue that you care about? Make a project sharing an idea or something you wish more people knew or think about it.

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What is an issue that you care about? Make a project sharing an idea or something you wish more people knew or think about it.

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Anime suas ideias ✏️ 💭¡Anima tus ideas! ✏️ 💭Dai vita alle tue idee ✏️ 💭

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Join Octo Playtime on May 16th to Make a Mini Game based on empathy for animals and their environment. 🐠 🚯 🌿

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Join Octo Playtime on May 16th to Make a Mini Game based on empathy for animals and their environment. 🐠 🚯 🌿

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🌱 What is an animal that you care about and want to feature in a game? Where does it live?

🌱 What does this animal seek out in its environment (such as food or shelter)?

🌱 What challenges does it face (such as predators or pollution)?

🌱 What do you want others to understand about this animal by playing your game?

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Join us online on March 7th to create and share projects on the theme People who inspire us. 🌊

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Join us online on March 7th to create and share projects on the theme People who inspire us. 🌊

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Who are the people who inspire you? Who is someone who has influenced you somehow and what do you attribute that to? Is it a person in your life? Is it someone famous? Is this someone that crossed your path one time in life? Create a project that shares a feeling, an attitude, a counseling, a lifestyle or even the person itself who you think about when reflecting on the ones who inspire you in life. :)

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Natalie created a character with the painting tool in OctoStudio and, having a background photo from device, they invite us to think how can we make a difference in the world.

Accessibility note: this video doesn't have any sounds.

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This padlet is for all year long! :)))) 

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This padlet is for all year long! :)))) 

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We invite you to join us on February 14 to celebrate love and friendship!

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We invite you to join us on February 14 to celebrate love and friendship!

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Many countries in the world celebrate Valentine's Day as a day to share admiration and kindness for others, romantically or in a friendship only. Either we call it Valentine's Day, Dia dos Namorados or Día del Amor y la Amistad, there's this day of the year where people make their best to think good of others and the bravest ones even express that with little notes, snacks to the work group, a flower to grandma, chocolates to children and many other ways.

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Let's celebrate love and friendship by creating an OctoStudio animated card saying how much we admire and care for someone and then, if you'd like, sending it to them as a video or a GIF. 💌

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Let's celebrate love and friendship by creating an OctoStudio animated card saying how much we admire and care for someone and then, if you'd like, sending it to them as a video or a GIF. 💌

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Info and guide for Celebrating Love and Friendship Octo Playtime session

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Info and guide for Celebrating Love and Friendship Octo Playtime session

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Celebrating Love and Friendship with OctoStudio 

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This project uses my new LEGO love sign that I got from my husband. He and I appear here in LEGO form. With more time, I want to have the roses fly in from everywhere.

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We've been exploring the Pepper's Ghost illusion + OctoStudio in the Tinkering Studio. I wanted to bring our new leopard curtains because we got them for the baby we're expecting in April, so this is a valentine for baby-to-be - Steph

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My heart is in health in my Yoga Classes with my Golden Age friends, I made them a card

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My Valentine's this year, Hattie and Peanut

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Momo says "Happy Valentine's Day" (Eric)

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Momo says "Happy Valentine's Day" (Eric)

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I was inspired by a photo I took last week of a bear made of grass with a big heart in its paws and heart-shaped baloons ... and I got two bears in love ...

ps: the background photo was taken in the garden of an ancient villa where Ludovico Ariosto lived - he is the Italian poet who wrote about Orlando furioso who lost his mind for love

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Info and guide for "People Who Inspire Us" Octo Playtime facilitation

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Info and guide for "People Who Inspire Us" Octo Playtime facilitation

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This project celebrates one of the most important people in my life - my maternal grandmother who moved from India in 1985 to take care of me. The music in this project is of the singer Begum Akhtar who my Nani sounded so similar to. I chose to add a microphone because my Nani was a professional singer and sang on Indian National radio.

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The song name is: Volevo essere un duro. Pappaaarappaaarappaaaaaa 🎹🎸😁

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This is for a long time friend that inspires me a lot.

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Join April's Octo Playtime with the OctoStudio Team and our global partners to make projects about creatures and nature elements that we observe and love to learn about. 🌱 🦜

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Join April's Octo Playtime with the OctoStudio Team and our global partners to make projects about creatures and nature elements that we observe and love to learn about. 🌱 🦜

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- Explora tu mundo 🌱 🦜

- Explore seu mundo 🌱 🦜

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Explore your World resources page in NatGeo's website

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Explore your World resources page in NatGeo's website

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https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/explore-your-world-with-octostudio/

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IDEA SET

Open Educational Resource

Open Educational Resource

This activity is designed to guide educators to encourage learners to make observations about animals and create animated projects to share their discoveries. The activity invites learners to create with OctoStudio, a free creative coding app. This learning resource is co-developed between National Geographic Society and the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab.

Subjects

Earth Science, Biology, Ecology, Geography, Human Geography, Arts and Music

Developed in partnership with

Themes: Observation, Reflection, Environmental Awareness, Computational Thinking

Explorer Mindset Attitudes and Skills: Curious; Communicate

This activity invites learners to observe the world around them and then document and share what they notice by creating interactive projects using OctoStudio, a free creative coding app from the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. By creating their own projects, students engage in making observations and developing their ability to communicate their ideas with others. Through this suite of resources, learners will have the opportunity to notice, ask questions, and share their stories like an Explorer, all while building valuable coding and digital literacy skills.

By fostering a supportive environment for young learners to be curious about the natural world around them, they begin to ask questions, observe, and make connections to their own experiences. Learners can create projects by animating photos or drawings of animals that interest them. They can use the recording or text features in OctoStudio to add their observations, questions and ideas.

This activity was inspired by National Geographic Explorer Niharika Rajput, a wildlife artist, creative conservationist, and visual science communicator who uses the power of observation to spark curiosity in her work. Like Niharika, learners can build attributes of their Explorer Mindset, such as curiosity and communication, by observing and making things based on what they notice in their environment. By taking time to look closely at the world around them and then creating interactive projects based on their observations, learners can develop new ways to communicate their ideas with others.
Guiding Questions:

What is an animal that interests me?

What do I notice or wonder about this animal?

How can I communicate and share my observations with others?

When to Use the Activity:
This activity invites young people to document and reflect on the world around them. The activity works well across many subjects, including science, language arts, writing and computing.

Time: The activity can be completed in 50 minutes or can be extended to enable more in-depth exploration and learning.
Learning Objectives:

Engage learners to use their curiosity and questioning skills to observe and notice the animals found in their environment

Create a project using OctoStudio to share their observations

Learners will see the natural world as a home to diverse organisms

National Geographic Explorer Profile

National Geographic Explorer Niharika Rajput teaches learners how to explore their world through her unique approach to observation and storytelling. As learners engage with this activity, it's encouraged to share Niharika's story so they can learn more about her projects and see examples of how she's exploring her world. Learners can also be inspired by how she is using OctoStudio to share her work.

Educator Guide and Slides

The educator guide suggests how you can facilitate the Explore Your World with Octostudio activity. The guide includes an overview of the activity and other helpful materials for facilitating this activity. You can use the workshop slides to help guide and prompt students through the activity. Both the guide and slides can be customized for your learners and local context.

Student Activity Guide

The student activity guide is designed to help support learners to engage in the activity and create projects with OctoStudio while working at their own pace and within their specific environments. To spark inspiration, share the coding cards with learners to ignite their creative problem-solving in OctoStudio.

Sharing Your Projects

You can use a sharing platform as a way for learners to share their projects with family and friends. The Lifelong Kindergarten group has created a Padlet as an example, which features sample projects. If you decide to share a project online, you can use the hashtag #ExploreYourWorld.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Writers

Niharika Rajput, National Geographic Society

Audrey Everett, National Geographic Society

Rupal Jain, Lifelong Kindergarten Group, MIT Media Lab

Carolina Rodeghiero, Lifelong Kindergarten Group, MIT Media Lab

Natalie Rusk, Lifelong Kindergarten Group, MIT Media Lab

Editors

Bhavana Gandhi, National Geographic Society

Jaleesa Trapp, Lifelong Kindergarten Group, MIT Media Lab

Téo Xisto, Lifelong Kindergarten Group, MIT Media Lab

Producer

Bayan Atari, National Geographic Society

Content Designs

Patrick Cavanagh, National Geographic Society

Carolina Rodeghiero, Lifelong Kindergarten Group, MIT Media Lab

Photo Researcher

Jean Cantu, National Geographic Society

Last Updated

March 10, 2025

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This activity is designed to guide educators to encourage learners to make observations about animals and create animated projects to share their discoveries. The activity invites learners to create with OctoStudio, a free creative coding app. This learning resource is co-developed between National Geographic Society and the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab.

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Niharika's project about the Shola birds

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Niharika's project about the Shola birds

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Leopard Geckos<3 Zoë

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A memory from my aquarium trip ..

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I love the shape of hypes and how the working bees do their job.

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Project created by Zo

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Do you know me?

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I am still working on this game to communicate safe and harmful foods to feed ducks.

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I made a tilt game where a bee is trying to pollinate flowers and avoid its predator, the spider.

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Thinking about why some animals are not considered good or enough for some others

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Starting the summer (or winter!) break, we would love to learn: What is something that rests and recharges you? 🌴 📺 🖼️ 🪁 

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Starting the summer (or winter!) break, we would love to learn: What is something that rests and recharges you? 🌴 📺 🖼️ 🪁 

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🌱What is an activity that makes you feel like new and ready to start over?

🌱How do you make that happen to you?

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While we take a break from the live gatherings, we invite you to create and share a project (and your stories) anytime from July to August! :) 

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While we take a break from the live gatherings, we invite you to create and share a project (and your stories) anytime from July to August! :) 

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For resting and renewing my energy, I love reading a new book 📚 📚 📚 

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For resting and renewing my energy, I love reading a new book 📚 📚 📚 

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I started this project that can work as a timer where I put it in full screen mode and it counts 10 minutes for reading only, before I do any other thing with my phone. You can remix it by changing the time, the sprites, the sound effects and much more! :)

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Bryce created an animation to think about how many cars and trains are necessary to transport a certain number of people, as an invite to reflect on the car pollution impact in our cities.

Accessibility note: this video doesn't have any sounds.

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This is a project inspired by Qiyun Woo’s, who has been creating comic short guides for people to live a more sustainable life that can cause positive impact to the world.

Accessibility note: as audio, this project has three short ukulele notes right at the end of it.

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Rupal created an animation about how proper disposal of trash is important in their community to keep owls safe.

Accessibility note: In this project there's a trash bin and an empty juice box thrown right next to it, on the ground. A rat walks towards the juice box while an owl moves back and forward on the tree.