Wednesday, June 18

Today, the Mediasphere students went to Jim Barnett Park in Winchester to meet with Taylor Bates, the Environmental Educator for Sustainability Matters. With Taylor, we learned about different strategies to successfully reach out to people through social media, videos, and photos in order to best grab their attention. We also got to explore the native wildflower meadow planted at the park. The students began work on creating their own short-form videos about an environmental topic that had meaning to them. We should see the fruits of these labors by Wednesday next week!

Today we went to Jim Barnett park in Winchester. We met with two people from an organization called Sustainability Matters, which is a Virginia based community outreach program. They have headed projects such as the planting of the pollinator meadow in the park, and a program called Making Trash Bloom. Making Trash Bloom is a project in which they involve the community in turning capped landfills into pollinator habitats. We learned about the importance of pollinators and how they provide for us and for the rest of the environment. While we were there we got to explore and photograph the pollinator meadow, and the pollinators that were there.

At the end we wrote scripts for our own videos about topics we decided on in pairs. We even got to create and record our own videos with pictures and footage we took at the park. It was a very enjoyable learning experience and I think we all had fun.

 - Madison Wood

Today at Jim Barnett park we met with the Sustainabilty Matters program to learn about  how we can use social media platforms to create videos to help connect people to nature and wildlife. We also learned about a technique of voice over to use in our videos. This helped us build our short video to help us connect people to nature and show emotional appeal.

 - Charles Krupica

Today we went to Jim Barnett Park in Winchester. We met up with a member of the group Sustainability Matters. We looked at and walked around a meadow that they had planted over a spot in the grass (at Jim Barnett Park) that was too rocky to mow or do most things on. As of right now all of the flowers are Black-eyed Susans, but according to the member, next year there will be a lot of different flowers. 

 - Melody Lo

Today we went to Jim Barnett Park and we learned about the Sustainability Matters program. This important program helps make landfills into beautiful flowers that help pollinators as well. Also another thing that Sustainability Matters is famous for is the native flower field that was recently planted at Jim Barnett Park. When we went down there to look at all the flowers there were hundreds of bees and insects that helped spread the pollen of the flowers. At the end of this trip we made a video explaining the importance of Sustainability Matters and of pollinators.

 - Emily Polk

We went to Jim Barnett Park in Winchester and met with a Sustainability Matters member and they showed and explained to us what they do to help the environment. Recently, they've worked on a new project called Making Trash Bloom where they plant flowers on top of landfills to make a new home for pollinators and flowers instead of keeping it a pile of trash.

 - Galen Pierce

Today we talked to Sustainability Matters and they talked about how they plant meadows of flowers on top of landfills to restore the land and ecosystem. They also talked to us about photography and videography.  

 - Ryan Ure

Today we went to Jim Barnett Park and worked with members of Sustainability Matters. We learned about how they did a project called Making Trash Bloom, where they planted flowers over a landfill. They showed us how they make videos to catch people's attention, and to encourage interaction with the video, whether it's on the video or taking action for what's discussed in the video.

 - Silvia McCleary

Today we visited two people who were on behalf of a non-profit organization called "Sustainability Matters". They were showing one of their recent projects, a meadow which was placed in Jim Barnett Park to make it better for pollinators as well as to make it more aesthetically pleasing to humans. Majority of the photos were of the meadow itself and there a lot of one specific species of flowers, Black-eyed Susans, along with some other ones.

 - Osias Luna

Today we talked to a non-profit, called Sustainability Matters. A member told us, why they decided to create a meadow. We also learned, how they used social media to grow their organization.

 - Harshith Manyam