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Student Video Blog Feature - Student Leadership Program For Chesapeake Bay - Sara Wendt's Experience
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For 12-year-old Sarah Wendt, the road to environmental activism began with one small step: a class field trip, and making a video urging action to cleanup the Bay watershed.
As she and her classmates from Harrisburg Academy tested the water quality along Pennsylvania's Conodoguinet Creek last spring, Sarah was horrified by the trash and broken glass that filled the stream—and even more upset by the fact that "this was happening in an area close to my home, and that the people actually living on the creek were not cleaning up their own environment."
The experience convinced Sarah to apply for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Student Leadership Program, which prepares middle and high school students to be advocates for the environment. The seven-day trip down the Nanticoke River last summer was a revelation for the budding activist.
"It really changed what I thought about the Bay," says Sarah. "I learned just how hard it is to live a
lifestyle where you're not harming the Bay but taking care of it, by using less water and contributing less trash and waste."
Sarah decided she had something more to say about cleaning up our water—and her medium of choice was video. Working on her own, she shot and wrote the script for a four-minute documentary film that explains the environmental pressures facing the Bay, some of them in her own area of central Pennsylvania. Then she posted the film to YouTube, where it's been viewed by hundreds.
Video Blog: Sarah's You're On The Bay, Save The Bay
"I wanted to share my enthusiasm and start reaching out to other young people through [electronic] media. It's the most influential way—the way kids are most familiar with," she explained. "My goal is to start a community where kids are running things, and get others to join the effort."
Last November, CBF issued an invitation to clean-water activists across the watershed to turn out for a public rally in Washington, D.C. Sarah and her father, Doug Wendt, traveled from her home in Mechanicsburg to attend. "It was my first rally, and I was surprised that there were only a few kids," she recalled. "It showed me we need to get more young people and students involved in the effort." At the rally, Sarah met CBF President Will Baker, who invited her to CBF's headquarters to share her ideas on how to get her age group energized about protecting the environment.
"My generation doesn't really understand what's going on," she said. "We don't get outside a lot, and don't know how important environmental problems are." She hopes to change that mindset through future projects. Her next one will be a second Save the Bay documentary, using footage from the Washington rally.
Now a seventh grader at Eagles Mere Middle School, Sarah hopes to become a documentary filmmaker. She believes that video and other tools can put students her age in touch and create a group of young advocates. "We can share our enthusiasm and reach out through media," she said. But she also notes that "it takes an experience to see what's wrong with the Bay and the environment"—an understanding reinforced, she said, by her CBF student leadership experience.
Applications are now being accepted for Summer 2009 Student Leadership experiences. |
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2/27/2009 |
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