The following documentary was created by the Annenberg Youth Academy from USC: Valeria Urbalejo, Isabella Rascon, Clyde Jonas, and Johana Chochon-Albarran. A Teen’s Guide To Understanding Global Warming is a piece of media that is created by teenagers to be consumed by teenagers. Most problems are seen as too much for the younger generations, but we gave them the spotlight.
Our purpose was to shed light on the youth’s opinion on global warming. Before diving into the ideas the youth had on the subject, a brief background about global warming was described. In general, global warming is the long-term shift to more dramatic and intense weather patterns. Since the Industrial Revolution, mankind has contributed to the changes in our climate. From this, we went into great detail about the effects that global warming creates for urban environments like Los Angeles. With all of the creators being from Los Angeles, they held an interest in hearing the voices of their community, and what they felt about how their community is affected by global warming.
Following this, we went out to the USC campus to see firsthand, how youth feel about global warming, if they view it as a serious issue, or for any positive or negative reactions. Our findings have revealed an array of points of view, some believing that global warming is more serious than others. Overall the consensus was that youth does see its effects however, they do not make significant changes to combat the issue. After they expressed this, they shared how they wanted to change this behavior, or that they should be doing more for the community.
Through this micro-documentary, we wish to create a conversation about global warming and the lack of youth in the movement. To aid the younger generation, many resources other than popular solutions that are difficult for youth to access are given in the documentary. Non-profits and volunteer organizations are some of these easily accessible forms of involvement for the youth of Los Angeles.
By creating safe spaces for the youth to give back to the community, more issues in the same severity of global warming could become easier to address for the youth. But for now, the issue that affects everyone and will continue to affect the youth is global warming. So, we hoped to shed light on the severe matter, and helped the Los Angeles youth with their lack of involvement in global warming.
Step by step, despite our age, as a collective we can make significant changes.
The following link will take you to the Micro Documentary: Teen’s Guide To Understanding Global Warming.
Communicating Change 