From Your Nose Out:
Exploring the Use of Video Production in Urban Environmental Education

Amy Burtaine

Traditional efforts in environmental education (EE) have narrowly focused their programs on nature study. As a result many of these programs prescribed "touching the land"(one on one contact with natural areas) as a necessary element leading to the goals of ecological literacy and responsible environmental citizenship. Urban Environmental Educators have begun to recognize that these experiences are not always available to urban learners and that concern for and understanding of "nature"may not be the most relevant "environmental concerns"of urban youth. As a result, many urban EE programs are attempting to expand to include studies of the built environment, and programs which link "social"issues to environmental issues. These programs have taken innovative and creative forms, and are attempting to expand the movement's definition of "environment." In this thesis I suggest that video production, because of its accessibility and social value, can be a powerful tool for exploring urban spaces with urban learners. Given the pervasity of television media within the lives of American teenagers, and their familiarity and interest with the language of media, I suggest that video can be an exciting way of getting urban adolescents to "environmental action." Though the use of video production is not specific to the urban context, I will argue that it be given serious consideration for current and future programs exploring urban environments with urban youth.

What follows is an account of the process of making an "environmental video" with a group of adolescents and young adults in Providence, RI. It chronicles some of the successes and challenges, problems and pitfalls I encountered along the way in order to evaluate the use of video production as a tool in Urban EE. I identify and suggest criterion under which I believe such an educational tool would be useful. I hope this project can inform other efforts in urban environmental education and offer my recommendations for the use of video in an Urban EE curriculum. In chapter one I will briefly discuss the history of EE efforts, placing Urban EE in that context. Chapter two is a descriptive case study of the three month project I carried out with a group of urban young people making an environmental video. In chapter three I offer my recommendations for the use of video production in EE as well as suggestions for future video projects similar to my own.

A copy of the actual video has been left on record at the library of Brown University's Urban Environmental Laboratory.