Explaining Climate Impacts: Using Filmmaking to Explain Climate Change
This project presents an exciting opportunity for participants to learn how to communicate research from different disciplines to a general audience. The goal will be to create a documentary film, but no previous filmmaking experience is required.
Climate change will impact our lives and environment in different ways, but trying to visualize that impact can be difficult. This project aims to explain different strategies for meeting the challenges posed by climate change and natural processes. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, project participants will work together to create films and other media resources to examine how climate issues impact heritage sites in engaging and accessible ways.
The student documentaries will explore either natural or cultural heritage. This includes historic and archaeological sites, places where people once lived but which are now abandoned and threatened by coastal erosion, sea level rise and storms. Participants will create resources to enable a general audience to understand future climate impacts, strategies for working with change, and concepts of value when assessing competing options.
Student research will involve the development of interweaving stories, to explain the past, present and potential future trajectories. Although the focus will be on specific natural places or historic sites, the accessible stories created will show futures for places around the globe.
Students will work in teams, fulfilling roles typically encountered when making a TV documentary. The final product will be a documentary film accompanied by other media, including blogs, webpages and podcasts.
The finished films will be promoted and distributed through University networks and could be submitted to external organizations, such as the Green Gown Awards and the International Association for Media and Communication Research.
Preference will be given to students signing up for both semesters.