This course project is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your ability to Use

This course project is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your ability to
Use systems thinking to describe the impacts of human activity on an ecosystem; and
Demonstrate intellectual empathy for diverse parties impacted by environmental challenges.
It is also an opportunity for you to reflect on and make connections between what you have learned in the course and your personal and career goals.
Purpose.
Throughout this course, you have built a foundational toolkit for addressing environmental challenges. Your toolkit includes:
an understanding of how affective empathy can lead people to care about environmental issues and want to take action
knowledge about the planetary boundaries and the ways in which human activities put strain on those boundaries
an understanding of how human activity that disrupts naturally occurring Earth processes is unsustainable
Your toolkit also includes the essential skill of perspective-taking and the recognition of the value of this approach for developing solutions to problems that impact diverse parties.
Your course project is an opportunity to use all of these tools to tell a story that can educate and inspire someone else to care about an important environmental issue.
Overview of the Environmental Sustainability Story Task.
Telling a story can be a powerful way to help someone come to care about and better understand an issue. And when people care about issues, they are more likely to take action.
When Beth Pratt told the story of P22 to Los Angelans, many developed empathy for the cougar, participated in fund-raising events, and supported the Wildlife Crossing project. As you read in this week’s Learning Materials, Jane Goodall has had a tremendous impact on wildlife conservation efforts. Her success has as much to do with the way in which she evokes empathy through storytelling as it does from her groundbreaking scientific accomplishments. Also in this week’s Learning Materials, there’s an excerpt from Elizabeth Rush’s Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore. Rush communicates the impact of climate change and sea level rise on the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, LA by telling the story of her visits with island residents. Her detailed stories bring us into the homes of Chris Brunet and Edison Dardar, helping us to empathize with their struggles and understand how the island connects them to their ancestry in powerful ways and how those connections keep them from leaving even as they watch so much of the island disappear into the sea.
The project in this, your first Unity course, is an opportunity for you to harness the power of storytelling to educate and help others develop empathy for people impacted by an environmental issue.
Detailed Instructions & Requirements.
In this project you will tell a story – in your own words – of how people addressed an environmental problem in a specific context (which you identified in Week 4). Your story must integrate information from at least three credible sources (you can use the sources you identified in your Week 4 assignment or choose/add others).
You may present your story in any of the following formats:
Specifications
PodcastLinks to an external site.
5-10 minutes
Sources must be read at the end of the audio
In addition, you must submit a Word document with your sources listed in APA format
Visuals with audio narrationLinks to an external site.
5-10 minutes
Record narration with screen capture (use Canvas Studio)
Use in-text citations on slides as appropriate
Include a final References slide with APA citations for all sources
News story
750-1250 words
Embed links to sources within the text
Integrate text and images
Provide appropriate captions (with image source citations) for all images used
Include a complete list of sources at the end of the article, in APA format
Illustrated children’s story
20-25 pages with no more than 50 words/page
Integrate illustrations or photographs
In a separate Word document, provide: (1) a complete list of image sources; and (2) a complete list of references. Use APA formatting.
Regardless of which format you choose, your story must include all of the elements listed below.
Note that the format you choose will play a big role in how you include these elements. For example, if you are writing a children’s story, you are not going to include a statement like, “this problem is related to biosphere integrity” because that isn’t going to be meaningful. But you should include the information in a way that is comprehensible to your target audience. For example, you might say, “When an animal is not able to find a mate, it won’t have babies. Over time, that kind of animal may become very rare or even extinct, and that can cause problems for other animals that depend on it.”
The problem:
What was the problem?
Where did it take place?
Interested and affected parties:
Identify at least two groups of people or individuals who were interested in or affected by the problem. For each, describe:
How were they impacted (directly or indirectly)?
What were their concerns or perspectives related to the problem and potential solutions?
Who was involved in helping to address the problem?
What were the principal goals and perspectives of those involved in the solution?
Human activity and unsustainability:
How did human activity contribute to the problem?
Make explicit connections to either Robèrt’s sustainability framework (i.e., by identifying how human activity has disrupted Earth processes) or to the planetary boundaries. For example, in Cougar Town, the problem was an inability for P22 to reproduce (because he couldn’t find a mate). This problem was created by habitat fragmentation that occurred when humans built roads that isolated Griffith Park from the rest of the cougar’s natural habitat. Consequently, this story touched on both biosphere integrity (the risk of loss of biodiversity due to species endangerment) and land-system change.
Tackling the problem:
How did people solve (or begin to address) the problem?
What role did empathy play in addressing the problem (e.g., motivating people to address the problem, enabling people to collaborate productively with one another, etc.)?
Sources:
Integrate information from at least 3 credible sources within your story.
The format for attribution (e.g., whether you use in-text citations, links, a reference list at the end of the document, etc.) will depend on the format of your story. Be sure to follow the specific guidelines described in the table above and check with your instructor if you have any questions