Middle schoolers create interactive eBook

DAILY DOT COM - Andrea Santilli is a science teacher at Woodlawn Beach Middle School in Gulf Breeze. 

When asked about how she feels about the students in her class the response is clear and concise. 

"I'm very, very proud of my students," Santilli explains.

Santilli has good reason too. Three months ago, she challenged her seventh grade students with a project.  

The students were instructed to take pictures of living organisms that interested them, then write a story based on the organism they chose.

The end result was an e-book published on iTunes called, "Creatures, Plants and More! A Kid's Guide to Northwest Florida.

The e-book was released a couple of weeks ago and held the top position in the nature category for almost two weeks.

Haley Carroll worked on the humming bird. 

"We have humming bird feeders all around our house and i just live watching them", she explained.  

"I have a video of them fighting and that was probably the most fun that I had because, they look all innocent and sweet then they start attacking each other."

The e-book was released April 26 and held the top position in the nature category for nearly two weeks.

It's an interactive book filled with vibrant pictures, eye catching videos and stories related to the wildlife that can be found in Northwest Florida.

While the students describe the project as being fun, they also acknowledge the hard work:

"I actually used an Australian / British accent so we could add a twist and that took a lot of work.  I had to practice for that," said Brock Shine.

They used iMovie to edit the videos and then published the collection via iBooks author, a self-publishing application for Mac computers.

Santilli said the book had more than 400 downloads without any media attention.  She hopes to grow that number. 

"I don't think people realize the diversity that we have here in the gulf coast and with all the tragedy that happened here recently I think this is a plus."

She encourages those who  download the book, available only on the Apple iPad , to pass it on. 

Click here  to visit the iTunes store to download the book.