student produced media
The Best of Buena Vista: Empowering Community through Social Media
Just as we learn through experience, multi-year projects learn from previous years implementations. The Best of Buena Vista is a multi-year project that continues to build momentum each year it is repeated. Project leaders built on their success, addressed past challenges, and incorporated new opportunities and ideas.
Located in Buena Vista, VA, the project team at Parry McCluer High School sought to collaborate with their community to create optimism by celebrating the The Best of Buena Vista.
The goals of “The Best of BV” were to expand the current program of weekly video announcements made by and for the PMHS student body. In the second year of the project, the team built on the excitement and eagerness of new and returning students in their Blue Library and Film/TV classes. At the request of the their students, they sought to provide additional inter-generational opportunities and experiences utilizing film and written media.
The project aspired to disrupt the negative small-town mindset as their students engaged in interviewing adults about their positive contributions to the community.
The team also wanted to allow their students to benefit economically as they increased their communication, writing, and storytelling skills, while practicing responsibility and accountability.
What progress did they make towards their goals?
The project continued to make progress towards all of their goals. They Best of Buena Vista established and produced a regular pattern of publication which included promoting student achievement.
The negative small-town mindset continued to be disrupted as students connected with community members and created platforms of growth for both students and elders. PMHS students have a stronger connection to their school and community though the deep and meaningful relationships they have created with the community elders. Project lead, Rishi Richardson, reports that every experience has been richly rewarding as each interview and interaction is met with surprise and delight by all the participants.
Academic opportunities for their students have expanded while the students and community members are empowered was a new, positive perspective. Students are becoming progressive story tellers of their communities’ rich and complex history. Furthermore, the elders in the community also learn as they are excited to access their interview on social media and share with others.
What did students learn while participating in and producing The Best of Buena Vista?
PMHS students learned how to use camera equipment and practiced being in front of the camera. They increased their communication skills, writing skills and confidence through mentoring, interviewing, filming, creating content, and successfully producing film and writing products for “the Best of BV”. One student who needed help to write a paragraph when she first started the program is now completing rough drafts on her own! Another student with developmental challenges has gained confidence and improved his ability to share his ideas in front of the camera.
What challenges did they face and how did addressing these challenges shape future plans for the project?
From slowing down the project to a snail’s pace to stopping the project in its tracks, COVID and COVID related restrictions continued to be a major challenge for the project team Addressing these challenges head on, the project leaders rethought and reorganized how the project moved forward. They consulted closed with the communities’ elders and created contracts with students to complete the unfinished work from this year’s project.
After meeting with the communities’ elders, the project team revised their methods and took two directions towards completing their project goals. After all, “the Best of BV” was contributing to an optimistic mindset for the community, they could not let COVID hinder the momentum. The first direction was to continue interviewing elders as they have done in the past. The second direction was to create teams of students who would study one aspect of the community more deeply and for a longer period of time. Aspects of the community that have been studied thus far include the Buena Vista Colored School (a place where African-Americans attended school under segregation) and the Paxton House (a home built in the 1800’s which has been restored).
Both directions have been successful. In the first direction, community elders stepped forward to share their experiences with the students. In the second direction, student commitment to the project increased. So much so, project leaders have decided to expand the project into the summer months and the students are excited to participate!
Plans for the future
As students take on more responsibility, become more courageous, and find their inner voice, they are beginning to look for ways to shape the town’s future. With COVID restrictions starting to relax, community elders have once again come to the school to have conversations with the students.
The program is looking forward to the next school year and anticipate that the students will continue to grow and succeed in their participation. We at McCarthy Dressman Education Foundation are excited to see how “the Best of BV” continues to positively impact the students and community!
The project team is thrilled to share this video describing their accomplishments.
Additional Resources
Golden Rules for Engaging Students in Learning Activities
How School and Community Partnerships Enhance Student Learning
12 Ways to Use Social Media for Education
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Sustainable Education Through International Understanding
“When one country has an issue, it becomes the whole world’s issue. We as a planet have to try and make a change, because there is only one earth, which happens to be our only home… The small things affect the most, so definitely, I will do small things to save and conserve our planet.”
That’s a quote from one of the students, in the ESD: Sustainable Education Through International Understanding program, after collaborating internationally with Japanese students. It exemplified what the educators at Lakeridge Jr. High School were setting out to accomplish with this program.
Students Learn About Sustainable Education and How It Impacts the World
In an increasingly interconnected and globalized world the butterfly effect takes on new meaning. Emission problems in one country don’t just affect them; they affect all the surrounding countries and some that are not so close. As the rainforest is depleted we lose a global source of oxygen. When radiation leaks into the ocean, everything from algae to people are affected. Creating an awareness of global issues and sustainability is a necessary part of surviving in the modern world.
As Americans we often find ourselves a bit self-centered when it comes to world issues, but now that we can communicate across oceans with the click of a button, that distance has shrunk immeasurably and we can no longer afford to only think of ourselves.
How are 9th grade students in Orem, Utah learning about global issues through sustainability?
According to the initial proposal, submitted by Merida Davis’ team at Lakeridge Jr. High School, “Our goals are to stimulate and facilitate responsible sustainability awareness and interaction at the individual, community and global scales.” Their goal was to be realized by creating cross-curricular partnerships between the science department and the other subject instructors, initially in a professional development workshop. By creating this cross pollination of subjects teachers learned to “seamlessly incorporate sustainability into their subjects… and […] new perspectives on teaching their own subject area.” After this initial work with the educators was completed, the project moved on to address the students directly.
To become well versed in sustainability, students participated in sustainability-based community service projects. Part of those projects were about creating a documentary movie to highlight local issues, such as pollution, agriculture, climate change, resource management and depletion. Along with this, they also collaborated with Japanese students, giving them a perspective on this subject that they wouldn’t get otherwise.
WATCH: ESD Student Videos at VPD Awards
This project includes plans to offer a Sustainability Fair where students will celebrate their work by sharing their service and other sustainability-based projects. The Fair will culminate with a student film festival showcasing their work from throughout the school year.
Is this project something other teachers can replicate?
While now the primary benefits go to those students and educators directly involved with the program, it is the hope with future funding that they will be able to create online archives of lessons, produced videos, and other student work to serve as an outline for educators to adapt the program to their own schools needs.
Though the bulk of the cost goes into covering the teachers training, the best part about this model is once that initial hurdle is cleared it becomes increasingly easier year after year to teach this program.
How has the project evolved?
Through the lessons learned the projects accomplished in the last year, the educators have a better grasp on how to replicate the program in other classrooms more efficiently. Being able to replicate the program will enable them to broaden their scope in the coming year.
Through the grant they’ve been also able to fund Pen Pal letters to Toyoda Jr. High School in Japan. The exchange went beyond traditional pen pal relationships in that they were also able to chat electronically with students in Japan and Pakistan. A few students started learning basic Korean which resulted in a field trip to a Korean restaurant for many of the students first encounter with that culture’s cuisine. As a result of these opportunities, exchanges have also begun over Skype with students in Korea.
All of these things are creating students with a wider worldview and a greater connection to a global society. Through building relationships between teachers, offering meaningful exchange opportunities to students and by taking time to integrate curriculum, the ESD team has made sustainability education a reality for their students.
Learn more
- Sustainable Education – putting relationship back into education
- Education for Sustainable Development, UNESCO
- The Journal for Sustainability Education
- Sustainable Schools Project
McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation 