Climate Talks

In a mere three days I am heading off on another grand adventure to touch my toes on my seventh continent. (Australia, for those of you keeping track!) It’s been a whirlwind getting prepared for it all, but I wanted to take a minute before I go to share with you the launch of an exciting project I’ve worked on this year.

This spring I had the honour and privilege to partner with a local women’s art collective, Madeleine Co., on a documentary series. The concept of the short films, Climate Talks, was for us to witness children having frank and candid dialogues with adults about the single most important environmental issue of our times. Along with the obvious cute factor, I think some of the many merits of the films are that they expose what our children are really thinking and feeling about climate change, and leave the audience wondering what type of world we are passing on for them to inherit.

My role in this project was as an educational consultant. I helped develop 10 hours of workshops for students in Grades 3-6 to learn about climate change, so that they could then develop meaningful questions to ask their interview subjects. Some of the interview subjects were people the children knew intimately, like their parent or teacher, while others certainly had some star power. Why yes, that is how I got that photo with Ed Burtynsky!

While all of the films were beautiful and meaningful in their own way, my personal favourite had to be Lisha + Julie “You’re bringing up my biggest fear”. Lisha is such a thoughtful, fierce, and rad sixth grader who asks her local Member of Parliament some tough questions — many of which didn’t even make it into the final edit!

“My Biggest Fear”

 

Be sure to watch them all if you have a chance, and I hope you enjoy them!