Students turn trip into cinematic teaching tool

Published 8:00 am Saturday, February 3, 2007

HANSVILLE — Facing the jutting beauty of the Olympic Mountains, the beach of the Foulweather Bluff preserve rests quietly under the calm tide of Hood Canal. Amidst the swishing sounds of the waves and the soft chirping of the habitat’s renowned bird population, a different kind of chatter makes its way through the preserve’s forest.

The sound of budding elementary school conservationists, who along with Foulweather Bluff steward Dave Allen, have come to capture nature’s pristine essence on film and in verse.

Along with the background information that typically accompanies a tour of the preserve, Allen also doled out disposable cameras to students and encouraged them to record their thoughts in poetry.

With the help of Poulsbo film producer Nancy Sefton of Unicorn Studios, those words and images were fused into a seven-minute movie entitled “Foulweather Bluff: A Place of Wonders.”

“The film effort was initiated by one of the most generous gifts I could imagine to our Shipton Library Grant Program,” Allen said. Sefton volunteered her time and resources for production, which was made possible by the Shipton grant. “We decided it would be fun to have the film follow a child’s first visit to the Foulweather Bluff Wildlife Preserve; to see it through their eyes, ears and words.”

Students from Wolfle and Suquamish elementaries produced artwork, creative writing and poetry that drove the format and script of the film. Allen and the kids created a soundtrack, then Sefton edited the pieces into a motion picture.

At its Jan. 25 meeting, the North Kitsap School District board of directors viewed a special screening of the movie.

“This kind of project is right in the vein of the kind of thing we are going to have to do more of,” director Dan Delaney said of outdoor education. “We live in such a beautiful area … if you were living in an inner city school, studying the environment would be a classroom subject. Here, you just have to walk out the door.”

“There’s no question that it gives them a sense of responsibility and stewardship for these areas,” Sefton said.

Sefton has been producing educational videos in the fields of natural science, habitats and wildlife since the 1980s, but this project is the first in which incorporated students into the production. The kids’ creative projects not only added to the flow of the film, they also helped make it a viable teaching tool, she said.

“These are their peers and I think kids pay attention to what their peers do and say more so than to an adult telling them,” Sefton said.

During January, Allen showed the film to a Suquamish Elementary class and witnessed the educational power that can be packed into the student production.

“It was right to the point and a very specific visual and audio tool for the subject of writing,” Allen said. “(Since) there is no dated content, this production will be viable for many years.”