Think Globally Act Locally | The Power Of R

The grade 6-7 students at Queneesh Elementary are an active and technologically savvy bunch. Every time I visit Jaki Braidwood's class there are a rotating handful of students that use ipods to tweet mental connections they make during my presentations. All of her students utilize technology in everything that they do and, to be honest, it makes me jealous of my own elementary education. I also get to play/fumble on their SmartBoard and the kids all look at me funny because I haven't used one very often. We taught each other and from that relationship, built on solid waste, water issues, pixels,  and personal exploration, we started a very complex video production task together.  The Eco-Movie Preview Project.

The most powerful way to retain a concept of anything you learn is to apply it and then teach it.  Teaching a concept you have just learned, moves that information into a different part of your brain and this shift makes that idea more memorable. The kids were inspired and excited about a video project that I did together with students from Mark R. Isfeld and Lost Boys Visual Effects School called Disposable - The Billion Cup Blood Bath, and they wanted to make their own movie previews in groups of four to apply the knowledge about the environment they've acquired during the year. I think these students now have a better appreciation and respect for film-making and storytelling because as this task unfolded it got bigger and bigger and bigger.

These project was big because before you make a movie preview, it's a good idea to have a movie and before you have a movie you need storyboards and a script and before you have those you need a story, a message, a concept, and most importantly, you need to have facts and a firm grip on what you're talking about. In short, making a movie preview, or "pre-production," is a huge and vital task before the camera even gets switched on.

"When do we get to use the cameras," a kid shouted out as groups filled in a plot summary graphs with action scenes, apocalyptic devastation, person meets person scenarios and  car chases? "What are you going to shoot," I asked? "I don't know, something I guess." "Sounds interesting," I replied, "but probably not a movie I'd want to watch." "Oh yeah, I guess not." There were a few exchanges like this and they were really important to me. I've never tried working with students in this age group on such a conceptual project before. It was challenging and frustrating but also rewarding to see kids laughing their heads off about people picking up garbage and being chased by monsters at the same time. I can't help but to think of the hundreds of issues those monsters symbolize and the kids, unknowingly, tell the story idea to me with huge smiles, big eyes and the excitement that only validated connections can bring. It's a beautiful thing - this storytelling business, on so many levels.

The whole project was about learning to connect imagination with knowledge of the environment and communicating with peers diplomatically. Nothing has ever been achieved peacefully without these skills and collectively the students worked out their creative differences, merged their concepts and eventually produced an idea to create a movie from. Every group dynamic was  unique and moved at different speeds. Some excelled at communicating and got flustered by creative sections, while others had ideas spilling over and no organization. One thing was for certain though, everyone had a skill to contribute and everyone was critically important in the process.

After a quick introduction to lighting, camera angles, composition and audio techniques for their ipods, the students were set lose to film their storyboards.  Chaos, lots of laughs and growth overwhelmed the students and their projects. After that point I left and the groups shot, edited and posted their concepts to YouTube (see them below). Who knew learning about solid waste and water issues could be so transformational, rewarding and fun?  Thanks for the great term Queneesh. ACTION!

In many of my presentations I speak about the Great Pacific Garbage patch. Massive amounts of plastic find their way into our water ways on land, make their way to the seashore and eventually start spinning around in the ocean.  Plastic lasts forever because it is a synthetic material (man-made) that doesn't naturally occur in our environment. There is a big push from people who are aware of this problem to eliminate plastic from our lifestyles. This will take time but something you we can do today is eliminate our use of one-time use packaging and we can be a huge part of the solution to stop the flow of plastic into the ocean.

If you have to make a choice to purchase food in a glass container or in plastic packaging, always choose glass. Glass is made from melted sand and it is completely inert, which means there are no chemicals in glass that will hurt your body. Glass does not hurt the environment either. When glass breaks, it eventually turns back into sand. Sand is a natural part of our environment so there is no pollution.

To lower my ecological footprint I have been using recycled yogurt and margarine containers to carry my lunches in - things like sandwiches and carrot sticks, but I am making a permanent switch to glass. Pyrex glass containers are becoming more readily available and they are perfect for lunches and left overs. Thick, durable pyrex glass containers are heavier than plastic but you can feel good about knowing you are not eating any inorganic chemicals like Bisphenol A that may leach out of the plastic.

Plastic is made from oil that comes from the ground. Oil fuels our cars, and it can be used to create electricity but oil is a non-renewable resource that is clogging our atmosphere with greenhouse gasses. If we start using glass and porcelain instead of plastic again like humans have done through history for thousands of years, we can collectively slow the gasses in the atmosphere and stop plastic from ever getting into the ocean. That is a world that I would like to live in - plastic free and healthy for me, you, our families, friends and environment.