next steps

I met with an environmental communication specialist from King County Mary Raybourn on Thursday. The interview I planned would be around 15 minutes but ended up lasting over an hour, which was great because I was able to obtain so much more information. I’m trying to mainly focus on how to get this information out to the community about environmental issues and how to make it more widespread, not just directly to one group of people. My argument is explaining the importance of getting everyone regardless of race, gender, or class involved with environmental issues and solutions to help fix these environmental issues that we are facing. Talking to Mary we discussed the importance and reasons why certain groups have not been notified or lack of education within the environmental standpoint. She also stated that her and other environmental communication specialists from other companies are putting their heads together to try and help everyone receive the same information on how to help our environment. Next on my list is to research possible solutions for getting this information spread out to everyone, find out the most effective ways to communicate this information, and information put in a less dense way so that all people can understand.
-Tiara

Outline

So far I have not had much success with my interview-ees. One replied they didn't know who I could contact for information. Two haven't responded and another one said that they would get back to me. I may need to ask for an extension. Or I may just go down to Pike Place or something and ask the people down there how they think salmon impact the culture of puget sound and what's important to take care of them. I am in the process of contacting a fishery, but they haven't responded either. This interview is proving to be challenging and I don't know why. I think I have tried contacting 4 or 5 people now. It's beginning to be a little frustrating. In other news of my project, I have done some research and found a few good websites that have given me information on how climate change affects salmon. And after the feedback from my group I got a little better direction of what aspects of the project I should answer. So now I need to look at how I can mention how salmon affect the market, rivers, other animals, how it's a keystone specie and what that means. I think the broader significance of my project is to teach people about salmon and how climate change is affecting its environment. And when salmon are threatened it affects many many people, consumers, buyer, cultures, etc. these issues are what I want to address. Next is just figuring out how I want to address these, who I'm specifically trying to talk to, and what media outlets I'm going to use.

-Mary Jane-

Preparing for the Communication Challenge!

At this point I am still working on narrowing my project research down. I wanted to stop by the communications writing center and ask for some help with this. Right now I am thinking that I was to test young children's knowledge on climate change. I think that it is really important that kids are taught about conserving the environment at a young age. This could be crucial to future generation’s awareness of conservation of the environment. I want to test how much knowledge they are able to comprehend when it comes to the greenhouse effect and global warming. I think that this project could be really interesting in the results that it yields. I am very excited to get going on the lesson plan and to be able to interact with the children. I have no experience when it comes to communicating with young children so this will definitely be a big challenge. I received a lot of great feedback from my interviews and am excited to put some of the tips to use. This class is all about communication of environmental issues and this project will be very important since it is a whole new type of audience that I am trying to communicate with. This will definitely test my communication abilities but I am ready for the challenge!

-Atusa

A more complete project outline

For my project, I plan to make an informative pamphlet discussing the importance of eating local and organic foods, and the dangers posed by the consumption and production of industrial scale food products to both environmental and human health. The pamphlet will also discuss reasons why organic and locally produced foods are so expensive, making them only available to wealthier consumers. Most importantly, the pamphlet will highlight the importance of individual involvement in political actions to change the governmental regulations and societal frameworks, which keep organic and local foods from being consumed by all income levels. I plan to frame the language in such a way to make the pamphlets information and overall message accessible to the largest amount of people possible. I then hope to distribute the pamphlet at supermarkets, farmer’s markets, and other food stores.
I’m also considering doing some sort of guerilla campaign around the city, using wheat paste to put up posters with similar messages as the pamphlet around the city. I’m not yet sure if I want to actually do this due to time constraints. I plan to decide whether or not I want to pursue this idea in the very near future.

-Mollie

next steps in project plan

One of my steps is doing my interview this week. I already got an ok from the lady I’m interviewing I am just waiting for her to set up an exact date and time. I already prepared my questions to ask the lady and am adding things as I think of them. My next step is to start writing my interview essay and making connections with the interview with my project. After going to the Bill Mc Kibben talk I was able to narrow down what I wanted to do for my project. I want to focus on how to educate people on these environmental issues and how to communicate this to the public. Some major questions that I would like to do research to find answers to are: What are the most effective ways of communicating these issues to the public? Who is educated on these issues and who do not know about it? Through the Mc Kibben talk he stated that people all over the world including the most poverty stricken areas know about the “350” movement, which is the maximum amount of CO2 parts per million in our atmosphere that would not be detrimental to our environment. I was surprised that so many people around the world know about this movement, but yet I’m guessing that the majority of people in the U.S. do not know about this movement, including myself prior to his talk.
-Tiara

NOAA and Politics?

So apparently NOAA is now entered the political realm. NOAA has released a document called "Scenarios for 2035" in which they outline some possible reactions from the political sphere on climate change.

Here is the article about the document

http://www.slate.com/id/2251547

Here is the document itself

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:-4nzpQieii0J:www.ppi.noaa.gov/PPI_Capabilities/Documents/Scenarios-5-28-09.pdf+noaa+scenarios+2035&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiJuO00OiwnWHpWtS2lOKijDNY10fp7VNfrQE3gH9KkXWAzRy4rIVsskl9PSvs_e7ad6LMfVa5_uNXTvTwKjd46yw8oMdlPDR2gIEIGB4wjxyGzY3fTu_zgnUNPQCeRgwMwD1c0&sig=AHIEtbSBg-SdUvHV3GmPpTquuaZKJulQ0Q

-Blaise

Tik Tok on the clock...

As the weekend draws to a close and a new week is starting I have put together a list of things that need to be done as steps to completing the final project.

First, now that I have developed a topic, I plan to start finding information to the questions I want to answer. What is green building? Where did it start? How is the word of it getting around (Communication)? What are the benefits? I hope that as I am researching other important questions to answer will pop up.

Second, rather than relying of just online data sources, I plan to go the library Thursday afternoon to check out a minimum three books on green building. There is always a plethora of online sources but there is always really good information that can be found in books as well.

Finally, as I begin to gather information, I plan to write a rough sketch outline of the paper. I want to have a rough idea of where questions will be answered, in what order, and how long the explanations will go. This will allow me to see gaps and where more information or sources need to be drawn in support. I would like to have this rough sketch at the latest by Sunday.

Tres Pasos

1. My first two choices for interview fell through/have no returned phone calls nor emails, so trying to find a third person to do an interview. Which I'm looking at interviewing someone who works for the Tulalip Tribes in Natural Resources. I found a figure on their website about how climate change is affecting local tribes and mentions the salmon runs and how the local rivers are being restored. I want to go somewhere around that route.

2. Develop my questions and refine my exact project as far publicly, academically, and commmuncation-y.

3. Do some research on the icon of salmon in the Pacific Northwest and how salmon runs are affected by climate change and what is being done to help salmon. In which I will refine more on how I can incorporate the communication perspective.


-Mary Jane-

The Next Step

Step 1

Going to line up my interview with Mr Meyering whom I met with on Earthday.

Step 2

Do some research on consumption, try to get some numbers and facts to go with my advocacy campaign.

Step 3

Contact Mr Meyering with my proposal and see if he accepts.

-Blaise