Ithaca College

Park Productions screened student collaborative work at the Region One meeting of the Broadcast Education Association held Saturday, October 26th at the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York.  Carol Jennings, Director of the Park Media Lab, focused her presentation on an educational outreach video filmed in Antananarivo, Madagascar about lemur behavior and habitats.

In 2012, she and two Cinema Production majors traveled to Madagascar at the invitation of the National Film Festival to teach a video production workshop for students at the University of Antananarivo.   As part of the workshop, Ithaca College students and Malagasy students collaborated with biologists and educators at the Tsimbazaza Zoo to script and produce a video for Malagasy children to learn about their environment.   The project was supported by a grant from the Dr. John Keshishoglou Center for Global Communications Innovation.  The U.S. Embassy in Madagascar provided logistical support. 

This international and interdisciplinary collaboration emerged from the Naturalist Outreach video series that Park Productions is producing in partnership with Linda Rayor, Professor of Entomology at Cornell University, and New York State 4H.  Now in its fourth year, the video series inspires children to learn scientific facts about animals, plants, and insects in their backyards and beyond.