Conversations with a Dreamfish

Year 2009
Proponent Stream of Dreams Murals Society
Project type Engagement
FSWP funding source DFO Fraser Basin Initiative
Grant amount $600
Total project value $4,615
ID number 09-D107-E

Location: Basin wide

Project Summary

Overview

Together with one or two UBC students in Geography 410: Environment and Society, we will design and pilot a procedure where Stream of Dreams participants (kids) create puppet show vignettes using their painted Dreamfish to speak the messages learned during the Stream of Dreams program. The ‘conversations’ will be video recorded, edited to serve as short Public Service announcements and be posted on youtube and embedded in the Stream of Dreams Murals Society website to create a new Social Marketing presence. The videos will also be assembled onto a DVD that can be included in school libraries, and shown for assemblies to share with parents. The project goal is to provide a broader, more meaningful engagement for the elementary school children and allow them to encourage a larger audience to change behaviors to improve water for salmon.

Each vignette will include three aspects:
Build awareness of an issue related to clean water for salmon (education)
Introduce a behavior change to address the issue
Call for a specific action to make as part of the behavior change

Conversation with a Dreamfish is a natural artistic evolution and a community based social marketing outgrowth to extend the education and engagement achieved during the Stream of Dreams program.

Objectives
1. To empower elementary students to understand and teach others several concrete actions they can take for water protection for Fraser river salmon.
2. Creating a larger web-based audience who will know specific actions they can take to reduce pollution into salmon bearing waters.
3. Increased and reinforced knowledge in the larger school community (parents as well as students and staff) of the behavioral changes they need to make for Fraser salmon and the symbolism of the Stream of Dreams Mural.

Methods

Stream of Dreams Murals Society with one or two UBC students doing a collaborative term project for Geography 410: Environment and Society.  The course description asks the question, Most people can agree that the environment is important, so why is it so difficult to realize this agreement in sustainable practice? Or, how do we get people to change behavior given what we know?

The university students will work with Stream of Dreams staff to develop a format for the videos and theatre settings for the performances. Together we will develop a list of leading questions and basic script ideas that the elementary students can draw upon to create their mini-puppet plays so that the videos help educate about the issues, present needed behavior changes and make a call to action.  The UBC students will record the performances, edit the works and draw up a report on the techniques used so the process can be repeated at future schools.

Targeted behavior changes will include, but not necessarily be confined to, the following:
Behavior Change:      Call to Action:

Eliminate use of toxic cleaning compounds in the home.    Shop wisely. watch for symbols to avoid
No flushing medication down toilets.  Return unused medications to pharmacy
No pollution from car washing.    Go to car wash, wash on lawn, wash without soap
Reduce car use       Walk, bike, transit, carpool
Design and build to reduce non-point source pollution   Write letters to decision makers promoting urban       design that infiltrates storm water


Final Results

The final report for the study is posted in the orange resource box to the upper right.


Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Comment:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Comments

At 3:00 am on 1/18/12, www.itunes.com said:

They are very convincing and can definitely work. Still, the posts are very short for novices. May just you please lengthen them a bit from subsequent time? Thank you for the post. itunes.com

Flag as inappropriate?