Students use videophones to document environmental issues
From Shareideas
As part of its Digital Arts program, the Pearson Foundation trains young people in the US and Africa to use camera and video-equipped phones to document urgent social and environmental issues.
Story
The Pearson Foundation, through its Mobile Learning Institute carried out in collaboration with Nokia, offers Digital Arts Summer Camps across the world. During the Summer of 2007, Pearson worked with over 100 students in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana – a community devastated by hurricane Katrina – to make short public service announcements (PSAs) about issues facing the entire gulf. The students used high-end videophones to gather footage for their films.
From pollution, to over-fishing, to farm run-off, students chose subjects that present direct threats to the health of the coastline. Many of the perils now present along the coast have made the entire region more susceptible to further damage from ever-strengthening storms. Under the guidance and tutelage of the Gulf Restoration Network, students learned that runoff from cypress mulch used in gardens all over the coast contributes to the seasonal “dead zone” (the size of New Jersey) that exists in the delta where the Mississippi flows into the gulf. Because of the depletion of oxygen in this zone, no living thing can exist. Students entered the PSAs, which were broadcast on Current TV , in a Gulf-wide contests sponsored by the Pearson Foundation and the Gulf Restoration Network. They will also be sharing their films with students in Africa as part of a video pen pal program.
Beginning in September 2007, Pearson Foundation representatives Erik Gregory and Andy Lewis head to Africa for two months of digital arts programs in five countries. In Tanzania, they will work with the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) at Gombe National Forest. Students participating in JGI’s Roots and Shoots program will make films about environmental issues facing the forest. Some students will make PSAs about the abhorrent international trade in bushmeat (selling Chimpanzee meat for food). In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Roots and Shoots participants will make PSAs about issues facing their coastline, problems that directly correlate to what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. Students from Dar es Salaam will use the videophones to share movies with students in Louisiana who made movies about the same issues. They’ll text each other, share best-practices for digital arts, and become aware of the differences and similarities of their cultures.
More information can be found at the team’s blog: http://www.pearsonfoundation.blogspot.com/
