By Anna Garleff, Communications Specialist, OWC
Old or young ... you're going to love our newest video, because everybody loves cartoons! It shows us where our water comes from and how irrigation helps grow food in Southern Alberta. Here's a handy copy-and-paste link for educators who wish to show / share the video.
We've produced it FOR FREE for you to use!
Part of telling our watershed story is helping people understand where our drinking water and food in Southern Alberta comes from. We partnered with the Potato Growers of Alberta to produce 3 videos about this topic: a science video (look for it on our You Tube channel!), a kids' video (this one!) and a video about consumer choices (currently in post-production).
Thanks to Terence Hochstein and the Staff at PGA for their partnership and support, Mike Wind of Windiana Farms, Chris and Harold Perry, Jeff Bronsch and Nakamura Farms ... and all the hard-working hands who bring the potatoes from the fields to our tables!
The kids' animation is our newest release. It tells the fascinating story of how a tiny snowflake makes its long journey down from the mountains to eventually become a potato! The video shows us the importance of a healthy watershed - and smart farmers - to our well-being and the continued prosperity of Southern Alberta.
It's not only hard to fit the entire story of watersheds, irrigation and potatoes into 5 minutes, but it's even harder to come up with something that kids can easily understand and get excited about asking further questions on these subjects! We've pared it down to some core messaging and hope that parents and teachers see it as an opportunity to talk to their kids about what it takes to grow food, the importance of agriculture to our economy ... and to show the Oldman some love, because a healthy watershed means clean, clear drinking water for generations to come!
I have partnered with Jonathan Blackwood of My World Photography on our Film Project (tongue-in-cheek called #oldmangoestohollywood). I write the stories, do the art sketches, narrate. interview and direct - and Jon captures it all with his eagle eye and unsurpassed drone work. His editing and post-production work bring these stories to life!
So far, we have completed a whole suite of videos on a variety of watershed topics that are free for people to share, show and upload onto websites, presentations and classroom projects - and we are still busy with the ongoing video work. We've got two videos so far (including this one) that are specially for kids. The other one is about how kids can play a role in being great watershed stewards using the City of Lethbridge as an example. You can view it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFMtrk0jSMM
Our Collaborative Partners so far are the City of Lethbridge - telling a 3-part series on municipal watershed management and health - and the Potato Growers of Alberta to tell the 3-part story of rural watershed management and health.
We are also producing a documentary that is tied to our new historical timelines. The timelines have been in the making for over 2 years. Please take a look at them here: https://oldmanwatershed-council.squarespace.com/timeline
The timelines go from the earliest of times 60,000 BCE (!!!!!!!!) all the way through to present day where we are making our own history as we speak. We're not quite finished loading all the items, but there's a good chunk of it already up for you to see. We have had input from many people on this part of the project (literally too many people to thank here!!!).
There are key incidents in the timeline that form the backbone of the documentary. We did a beautiful shoot out at Tarcacey Bison Producers near Twin Butte about a month ago, and this Monday will see us out at Windy Rafters near Fort Macleod, telling another part of our watershed story out there.
THIS PROJECT CONTINUES TO NEED YOUR FUNDING. We are not charging for the produced videos - they are FREE as educational, science and heritage videos. We believe that every Albertan has a right to learn about their watershed and has an obligation to help protect it. If you can contribute to the project, please do so. Every and any amount goes a long way toward all the work that goes into these stories.
Please click here if you would like to donate, or please come in and visit us at our office (319 6 St S, Lethbridge, AB): https://oldmanwatershed-council.squarespace.com/donating
In the meantime, curl up with the kids and enjoy the show! (And if you're not sure how a snowflake used to be dinosaur's breath, maybe you just might wanna look that up beforehand ;-) Hint: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/56727/20150530/you-are-drinking-dinosaur-pee-everyday-heres-why.htm
Thanks for watching - thanks for sharing - thank you for supporting OWC!
Workers at Nakamura Farms out near Taber prepare the harvest for storage. Produced in Collaboration with the Potato Growers of Alberta and My World Photography.
