This post is in response to prompts asking how I would propose a visual format for describing my Tiny Ecology sit spot and what tools I would use. My site is located within my local community park and it’s been helping me to better understand resiliency and the importance of adapting to change. I had been visiting this site frequently for a number of weeks prior to writing this post.
If I were to propose a visual format for documenting this special place, then I would start with one of the first photographs I took at the start of the exercise.
I would share with you the way that I became more connected, not just to a sit spot, but also to the bees and the trees. If we are to reconnect the disconnected to our natural environment and communities, I think the photograph is a great place to start to build empathy as a step towards understanding the importance of climate action.
The Bees and the Trees
urban planning as a climate change action
What tools would I use and what kind of narrative would I create to tell you a story about some bees, some trees, and the sit spot I think of as my own? I would tell you the story as I would as though trying to reach an urban audience to help them learn more about the importance of urban planning as climate change action. I would orient you to the Vancouver City Parks website where a Google Map customization shows you where the Park Meadows are in the city (City of Vancouver, n.d.).
By situating you in this meadow, that is the main character of the story, I would then introduce the next character, the bees. I think that the plight of the pollinators is best told through the bees. By now their importance is well known. The challenges facing the pollinators extends beyond the few pollinating visitors to my local park, it’s beyond political borders.
The Plight of the Pollinators
I would extend the story to the United States by sharing information from the US Department of Agriculture which has released many photos and information into the public domain for educational purposes. The whole library of images opens to you when you reach into the public domain and the Creative Commons (Merkle, 2019).
I would quickly return to the little park in Vancouver, Canada to help you learn a bit about the different kind of pollinators that are local to British Columbia. I would provide you with a link to the Common Pollinators of British Columbia: A Visual Identification Guide. I would invite you to test your knowledge by seeing if you could find the two different pollinators from my photos above to the ones in the guide. I would try to make it fun, maybe I would add a quiz with the answers written upside down at the bottom of the page.
This return to local framing is important, as it’s been shown to increase engagement in environmental issues (Cambell and Vainio-Mattila, 2003 cited by Altinay 2017). The targeted audience of this blog post is a local city reader. My hope is to increase engagement in the environmental issues of pollinators and shade trees, that are important environmental issues, for which locals could become more involved in, or at least become more informed about.
Video is also a very effective visual tool and by including an educational video, like this trailer for the Hives for Humanity documentary, I would invite you to contemplate their mission
“We connect people to nature, community and themselves AND WE DO IT THROUGH THE BEES.”
Hives for Humanity, n.d.
This would open the story up to broader social issues and bring in the story of the disenfranchised in the city. I would continue in that vein to another urban planning focus, shade trees.
I would invite you to learn about their importance by trying out CBC’s interactive tool which would allow you to enter your postal code and see how your neighborhood ranks in terms of hotness (if you live in Canada) and the role of shade trees in that result.
I think that the combination of visuals and interactivity is very powerful when it can bring an issue to your local neighborhood. Having set the context for the importance of the shade trees I would continue to share what the result was for my neighborhood and illustrate the sit spot with a map of trees.
I would continue on to share with you that that Vancouver has been developing some excellent educational apps, like this one, Vancouver Street Trees app, which I would use to tell you all about my favorite tree in the park, the Raywood Ash, that since 1992 it has lived in growing splendor at the end of the first corner on your way to my sit spot. The minimalist view in the app works well to find a tree on the map, compare the leaves through a photograph, and confirm its identity in a pop-up photo. I think it’s personality shines brighter if you see it in all its glory so I revert to the photograph.
Raymond Ash: Photo credit: Julie Simonsen, 2022
I would use this photo to bring you back to connect with community. I would tell you how this tree stands majestically in a neighborhood of green space lovers and that you can see evidence of this in all the yards up and down the streets around this park. I would tell you how the Community Garden situated here was started by an ecological artist whose art and artful projects have made, and continue to make, a difference. I would invite you to learn more about it’s caretakers, the EartHand Gleaners Society, by inviting you to watch their video Buzzscaping: Building a Pollinator House in Strathcona (EartHand Gleaners Society and Environmental Youth Alliance, 2013).
I would sum up the story by pointing out the importance of Community and ways that people connect through green spaces, art, and hands on natural education and how it’s these connections that can inspire empathy for the natural world. Then I would wrap up by inviting you to share in climate action in your own community.
References and Inspiration:
Border Free Bees and the Environmental Youth Alliance. (July 2017). Common Pollinators of British Columbia: A Visual Identification Guide.
CBC. (2022, July 13). Here’s who lives in your city’s worst heat islands. Retrieved July 25, 2022 from https://ici.radio-canada.ca/info/2022/07/ilots-chaleur-villes-inegalites-injustice-changements-climatiques/en.
City of Vancouver. (n.d.). Pollinator Meadows. Retrieved July 25, 2022, from https://vancouver.ca/parks-recreation-culture/pollinator-meadows.aspx.
EartHand Gleaners Society and Environmental Youth Alliance (2013, November 2). Buzzscaping: Building a Pollinator House in Strathcona. [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/78438493.
Hives for Humanity. (n.d.). Home Page. Retrieved July 25, 2022, from https://www.hivesforhumanity.com/.
ltinay, Z. (2017). Visual communication of climate change: Local framing and place attachment. Coastal Management 45(4), 293-309.
Merkle, B.G. (2019). Writing science: Best practices for the images that accompany your writing. Ecological Society of America 100(2), 1-7.
United States Department of Agriculture. (2014). Openverse. Retrieved July 25, 2022, from https://wordpress.org/openverse/image/c17a9458-a5b7-4ab9-9ddc-b0349f62f50c/.