Gabe Garcia 11th grade Jessica Mcallum |
Voices from The Animas |
Project Reflection
Link to my interview of three young girls about the river
All of the interviews
Project Reflection
In this project students researched and gained information, some, in the form of opinions from surrounding and affected residents. The spill occurred in August 2015 and ruined a lot of the rivers, streams, and wildlife health. We as the AHS Juniors were tasked with interviewing people in our communities that shared the same or different opinions from ourselves. We took recordings of the interviews and put them in a large archive filed with everyone else's interviews making a large storage of information. Throughout the projects we also gained our own views and opinions on the river spill. At the end of the project we held an exhibition at the Fairgrounds on October 8th giving the community that had not been able to give an opinion the chance to be interviewed and listen to our already existing interviews.
My full and total academic learning in this project consisted of gaining my own opinion about the EPA and the miners/ mine company. I was able to tell the difference between the rhetoric of several articles and who they were bias towards. My understanding of making people feel better and making a situation go towards one's “way” such as when the mayor drank the water from the river to prove that it was ok for consumption, even though humans are not the only creatures the river needs to be safe for. When in several of the meetings with people and our seminars I found that the river is so much more than a rafting and kayaking sport area but it is fact a very spiritual and deeply loved water source that the navajos, for example, need to survive and without it they lose their ancestors. My perspective has been changed on waste management and responsibility to do with that. Also the blame that was thrown at different people and organizations has changed my mind set to rather than find evidence of fault and to get those that are to blame to pay for their bad choices, to find a solution and help those that have been effected.
The most difficult part of interviewing was definitely just getting the interview. People talked our ears off about what they thought about the river and made our jobs of listening and conducting questions quite enjoyable. My interview would have been better if I could have found one of the very important opinions such as water purifications crews or miners or even someone that deals in any form of work to do with the river. Children like the ones in my interview had a very important opinion because they also are lovers of the river and the spill affected them as much as anyone else. My take away from the interviewing process was mainly a sense of being able to tell if someone is giving me their full opinion and knowing when information is legitimate usable information. This could have also been my prior research.
At exhibition I was frankly unimpressed with my performance but impressed with the performance of the teachers that put the event together and the people who showed up for the interviews.
To be honest I did not gain as much as I had hoped from exhibition mainly because I was leading people in. It, however, was very refreshing to see our community come together to listen to the interviews and gain new insight and create new opinions on the river. During the exhibition there were interviews being taken and I think that was the most important part of the whole exhibition because it means a growth of more information and that our message of keeping the river clean will be driven deeper into the minds of those poisoning it.
What was the most important personal or social lesson you learned or in what way(s) did you grow through this project as a person?
My biggest take away from the full project was just to keep the river clean.
The animas river is such a large part of our culture in Durango and down stream from Durango.
Farmers, Navajo, and other people who use the river are the real reason on a humanitarian scope to keep it clean. On a larger view, if we keep using the river as our moving trash can, the animals with die and the life in the river will leave. Unfortunately it has already been changed beyond repair but hopefully the river will make itself better eventually.
My full and total academic learning in this project consisted of gaining my own opinion about the EPA and the miners/ mine company. I was able to tell the difference between the rhetoric of several articles and who they were bias towards. My understanding of making people feel better and making a situation go towards one's “way” such as when the mayor drank the water from the river to prove that it was ok for consumption, even though humans are not the only creatures the river needs to be safe for. When in several of the meetings with people and our seminars I found that the river is so much more than a rafting and kayaking sport area but it is fact a very spiritual and deeply loved water source that the navajos, for example, need to survive and without it they lose their ancestors. My perspective has been changed on waste management and responsibility to do with that. Also the blame that was thrown at different people and organizations has changed my mind set to rather than find evidence of fault and to get those that are to blame to pay for their bad choices, to find a solution and help those that have been effected.
The most difficult part of interviewing was definitely just getting the interview. People talked our ears off about what they thought about the river and made our jobs of listening and conducting questions quite enjoyable. My interview would have been better if I could have found one of the very important opinions such as water purifications crews or miners or even someone that deals in any form of work to do with the river. Children like the ones in my interview had a very important opinion because they also are lovers of the river and the spill affected them as much as anyone else. My take away from the interviewing process was mainly a sense of being able to tell if someone is giving me their full opinion and knowing when information is legitimate usable information. This could have also been my prior research.
At exhibition I was frankly unimpressed with my performance but impressed with the performance of the teachers that put the event together and the people who showed up for the interviews.
To be honest I did not gain as much as I had hoped from exhibition mainly because I was leading people in. It, however, was very refreshing to see our community come together to listen to the interviews and gain new insight and create new opinions on the river. During the exhibition there were interviews being taken and I think that was the most important part of the whole exhibition because it means a growth of more information and that our message of keeping the river clean will be driven deeper into the minds of those poisoning it.
What was the most important personal or social lesson you learned or in what way(s) did you grow through this project as a person?
My biggest take away from the full project was just to keep the river clean.
The animas river is such a large part of our culture in Durango and down stream from Durango.
Farmers, Navajo, and other people who use the river are the real reason on a humanitarian scope to keep it clean. On a larger view, if we keep using the river as our moving trash can, the animals with die and the life in the river will leave. Unfortunately it has already been changed beyond repair but hopefully the river will make itself better eventually.