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- All Subjects: Creative Project
- All Subjects: conservation
- All Subjects: urban planning
- Creators: School of Sustainability
- Creators: The Design School
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
This 15-week long course is designed to introduce students, specifically in Arizona, to basic sustainability and conservation principles in the context of local reptile wildlife. Throughout the course, the students work on identifying the problem, creating visions for the desired future, and finally developing a strategy to help with reptile species survival in the valley. Research shows that animals in the classroom have led to improved academic success for students. Thus, through creating this course I was able to combine conservation and sustainability curriculum with real-life animals whose survival is directly being affected in the valley. My hope is that this course will help students identify a newfound passion and call to action to protect native wildlife. The more awareness and actionable knowledge which can be brought to students in Arizona about challenges to species survival the more likely we are to see a change in the future and a stronger sense of urgency for protecting wildlife. In order to accomplish these goals, the curriculum was developed to begin with basic concepts of species needs such as food and shelter and basic principles of sustainability. As the course progresses the students analyze current challenges reptile wildlife faces, like urban sprawl, and explore options to address these challenges. The course concludes with a pilot pitch where students present their solution projects to the school.
Filmmakers seek to create story pieces that are visually beautiful and engage the full attention of their audience. They typically abide by a 3-step process moving through pre-production, production, and post-production. Within each step, there are a series of tasks that need to be accomplished in order to reach the completed film. A successful film requires careful planning and strategy in pre-production, timely and decisive execution in production, and minimal unforeseen retouching in post-production.<br/><br/>Even though filmmakers have continued to follow the same formula throughout the decades, the filmmaking process has remained largely inefficient. It is extremely common for pre-production planning to be undercut, for production filming to run far too long, and for post-production VFX and editing to send the project over budget. These instances can cause major issues as the project is being finalized. In many scenarios portions of the project need to be reshot, the box office revenue isn’t enough to make up for extensive VFX retouching, or the project may never even come to fruition. <br/><br/>The reason for this recurring theme of films being over budget and out of time is quite simply that technology has made filmmakers lazy. “Fix it in post” is a disgustingly common phrase used in the film industry. It describes the utter abuse of computer retouching in the post-production phase of filmmaking. Despite working in an industry that seeks to entertain the human eye, filmmakers have become blind to all of the small mistakes that could cost them hundreds of hours and millions of dollars in the long run.
Soiled: An Environmental Podcast is a six episode series where common environmental topics are discussed and misconceptions surrounding these topics are debunked.
The COVID-19 Pandemic has provided a challenge for educators to create virtual learning materials that are engaging and impactful during times of high stress and isolation. In this creative project, I explore the variety of virtual tools and web applications from Esri by creating a Story Map on the Verde River Watershed. This Story Map is intended for an audience of students in late middle school and early high school but can be a resource to teachers for a wider age range. The integration of interactive technology and virtual tools in educational practices is likely to continue past the immediate circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this Story Map is to showcase one of the many uses for geospatial web applications beyond the immediate realm of GIS.