Editing Life Stories at the Science Museum

The Frame-by-Frame Theater

Inez visits a science museum's Frame-by-Frame Theater. The theater shows short films made from observations collected over long periods. Editors choose important moments to show how living things change. A life cycle model uses words, pictures, and arrows to connect these events.

The editors use four labels. Birth marks a new young living thing beginning life, such as an animal hatching or being born. Growth includes getting bigger and developing body parts. Reproduction means producing offspring, or new young. Death means that an individual's life has ended. An individual can live for some time after reproducing.

The housefly film follows one fly from hatching until death. A housefly's wormlike young is called a larva. Later, it becomes a pupa. Inside the pupa, its body changes before an adult emerges. The film log gives the days after the fly's egg was first recorded.

The hamster film shows a mother giving birth to live pups. A pup grows larger, develops thicker fur, and becomes an adult. As an adult, that hamster produces pups. Later in its life, it dies.

The nasturtium film shows a seed sprouting into a seedling. The seedling develops more leaves and becomes an adult flowering plant. The adult produces new seeds. Some of those seeds later sprout. The original plant eventually dies. These films follow particular individuals; other individuals may spend different amounts of time at each stage.