A group of students from Richmond Secondary School and Sir Winston Churchill Secondary in Vancouver have produced a documentary, which promotes environmental sustainability.
The 50-minute documentary, named “This is Not Earth”, was the joint effort of 10 Grade 12 students who are connected through the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program, an international educational youth program.
“As a requirement of the program, we got to choose what sector of society we wanted to make an impact on and to do a creative project. For us we are all very passionate about the environment,” said Vedanshi Vala, who lives in Richmond.
“A lot of kids find themselves on Youtube these days, so it’s an easy way to communicate and get across to our generation this message about environmental sustainability through video.”
This Is Not Earth
The film features a number of people in the community, including executives from the David Suzuki Foundation and Translink, a professor at Langara and some high school students.
The students said that through the documentary they learned about and demonstrated environmental challenges we are faced with and what people can do to remove the problem.
“At school, we don’t seem to talk a lot about sustainability, some teachers even put out the message that you don’t need to bother doing recycling, because doing something this small is not going to make a difference,” said Vala.
“But by talking to these people, we learned that each small action does make a difference, no matter how old you are and what your position is in society, everyone can make a difference.”
David Holcer, one of the cinematographers for the project, said their experience showed that anyone can get their messages across today if they’d like to.
“We have the tools we need – our phones in our pocket, all the resources are accessible to us, like Youtube. Nothing will really prevent you from spreading your message. Anyone can do it,” he said.
