In this project, we found a problem affecting a certain ecosystem and had to find a way that we could fix it. Our proposal was to help the american pika, a small creature that lives in the hills of mount Lassen. We stuck close to this idea for our project, creating a video to show a few ways to help these cute critters. The problem is that wildfires are destroying their habitat, and since they have no way to cool themselves, they must move to inadequate rocky areas. If we practice safe fire, do not litter and keep clear of pikas, we can help restore their population. It is important to note that we did not say much on stopping fires because fires are a natural occurrence that helps ecosystems. In fact forests suffered throughout the last century because they did not have enough fires. Smaller plants took up tree's resources and the trees needed room to grow. This caused humans to compensate by starting planned burns.
Collaboration: our group had allot of trouble with giving an equal amount of work. Half of the group did most of the work and one group member even refused to help us, instead being in another group's video. We had a great video though and we hope people learn allot from this video. i did well editing the video and staying on track. The goal was to create a professional video and we did all we could to make this happen. We used our schools quality usb mic for the voice over and I even made an awesome diy tripod to put my phone in. I should have forced other group members to pull their own weight. Also, we should have tried to make our video a little more serious, since this is a serious issue. I still like the amount of entertainment since it make the information easier to watch and a little more accessible.
What did I learn?
I learned allot from this project. Surprisingly, I did not learn the most from the actual pika research but in fact the idea of the project. We saw that the environment obviously needs allot of help, and if everyone does their part, we can make a huge impact. Everyone did something different but the message was the same. Small changes make a big difference. We on;y have one planet and if we break this one, we probably can not make a new one.