Young Filmmaker Attends Leadership Camp
Sharon Pieczenik Click the image to enlarge.
PBI has found that one of the best ways to reach young people is through other young people. That's why, this year, we decided to send a student to document our annual Polar Bear Science Leadership Camp, held in Churchill, Manitoba, each fall. The DVD will be used for educational purposes to help inspire students to care about polar bears and the Arctic.
With the help of National Geographic photographer Daniel J. Cox, who serves on PBI's Advisory Council, we selected Sharon Pieczenik to create the documentary. Pieczenik is working on a Master's Degree in filmmaking through Montana State University's Science and Natural History Filmmaking Program. She graduated from Stanford University with a degree in International Relations and worked in film production in Los Angeles for two years before enrolling in the master's program.
During the trip to Churchill, Pieczenik not only captured the experience on film, but helped coach the students attending the camp on how to make good presentations and give good interviews. The value of this was expressed by student Rob Okany of Winnipeg in an essay he wrote after the camp.
"Of course, teaching all this information to 12 or 13 young people would accomplish little," he wrote. "That's why PBI had the foresight to create a leadership program. In addition to discussing the problems of global warming, we learned a great deal about how to lead. We obtained invaluable information about how to conduct interviews professionally and convincingly. We gained advice on how to present information to an audience in a way that makes them want to listen. In this way, the knowledge gained at this camp will not only be passed to 12 people. It will spread to hundreds of people, and from those hundreds, the message will be spread further."
Pieczenik described the filmmaking experience in her personal journal, in an entry dated October 7, 2005.
"The interviews I have conducted with the students have been surprising because, in a short period of time, many have broadened their views and beliefs in themselves and their leadership role in the conservation movement," she wrote.
"One pleasant surprise came out of Mary Blake's interview the other day. She explained to me that by nature she tends to be on the more quiet side, a characteristic she viewed as a weakness in terms of being a leader. She believed that all leaders are outgoing and relatively loud and aggressive. Yet her view about herself has changed and she now knows that she is and can be a leader. It is conviction and persistence that gets a message across. She has more than enough of the tools necessary to become a leader in any movement she chooses. All she needs is some practice and a belief in herself and her cause. I think that she is beginning to understand this fact and it was amazing to witness a young woman's moment of 'eureka' and self-growth and awareness."
With the help of National Geographic photographer Daniel J. Cox, who serves on PBI's Advisory Council, we selected Sharon Pieczenik to create the documentary. Pieczenik is working on a Master's Degree in filmmaking through Montana State University's Science and Natural History Filmmaking Program. She graduated from Stanford University with a degree in International Relations and worked in film production in Los Angeles for two years before enrolling in the master's program.
During the trip to Churchill, Pieczenik not only captured the experience on film, but helped coach the students attending the camp on how to make good presentations and give good interviews. The value of this was expressed by student Rob Okany of Winnipeg in an essay he wrote after the camp.
"Of course, teaching all this information to 12 or 13 young people would accomplish little," he wrote. "That's why PBI had the foresight to create a leadership program. In addition to discussing the problems of global warming, we learned a great deal about how to lead. We obtained invaluable information about how to conduct interviews professionally and convincingly. We gained advice on how to present information to an audience in a way that makes them want to listen. In this way, the knowledge gained at this camp will not only be passed to 12 people. It will spread to hundreds of people, and from those hundreds, the message will be spread further."
Pieczenik described the filmmaking experience in her personal journal, in an entry dated October 7, 2005.
"The interviews I have conducted with the students have been surprising because, in a short period of time, many have broadened their views and beliefs in themselves and their leadership role in the conservation movement," she wrote.
"One pleasant surprise came out of Mary Blake's interview the other day. She explained to me that by nature she tends to be on the more quiet side, a characteristic she viewed as a weakness in terms of being a leader. She believed that all leaders are outgoing and relatively loud and aggressive. Yet her view about herself has changed and she now knows that she is and can be a leader. It is conviction and persistence that gets a message across. She has more than enough of the tools necessary to become a leader in any movement she chooses. All she needs is some practice and a belief in herself and her cause. I think that she is beginning to understand this fact and it was amazing to witness a young woman's moment of 'eureka' and self-growth and awareness."
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