Educating about Salmon Safe

My CBLR Educating About Salmon Safe

            My Community Based Learning experience started from taking BIS 240. While taking the Introduction to Sustainability class I worked with the Alexa and Cassie in the Sustainability offices to educate people about a sustainability related issue. The topic I choose to focus on was the endangerment of the wild Salmon population in the Pacific Northwest. Specifically, I educated about the University of Washington’s Salmon Safe certification and the impacts we on campus can have on the endangered species such as not driving leaking cars on campus, not dumping waste into storm drains, and refraining from pesticide and fertilizers. The runoff and storm drains wash into North Creek which is a tributary of the Sammamish River where the Salmon migrate through. Connecting these impacts from where the pollution begins and following it through where it goes and its impacts has been a really interesting part of educating because often times we feel disconnected with our impacts and waste and where it might end up.

            My educating task was to make an informational video to present to a class about my topic. I was excited at using a video to educate because it is hard to attract attention to a topic using posters or flyers on campus. However, I had never made a video before nor did I have any experience in film making. Luckily, I had a friend who was able to film me using their Surface Pro and we downloaded editing software to edit all the mistakes out. Even though the filming ended up being mediocre I was really excited when the final product came out and all the educational and informational points came out really well. Overall, my CBLR experience was very interesting as I saw correlations between what I was learning in class and the topics I was talking about in my educational video as well as gaining new video making skills which I had never done before.