Pre-writing work 

-Creation of the Digital Humanities  

-recreating meaningful environments  

-transitive reading  

-creating a public intimate private life 

-place making  

As it stands right now, my project would concentrate on the invasive plants and species in Maryland and where these invasive plants came from. The goal would focus on how much our environment has changed since it was colonized and invasive species changes how we perceive and experience our environment.  

The goal would be to reach Maryland residents and encourage them to live more mindfully in their environment. I would like to encourage Maryland residents to plant more native plants and educate them on the various invasive species. All in efforts to draw attention to how much our environment has changed since colonization. Obviously, the makeup of American life and localities are a glaring example of colonization, but I would like to raise awareness for how much our environment has changed and encourage people to live more mindfully. And inspire people to connect with native environment.  

The idea of native plants and species has been heavily documented and advocated for, mostly to protect ecosystems. Obviously, the idea of protecting native plants and species is a priority of many professionals in the environmental studies field. I am also sure it has been covered when talking about native peoples and colonization, but my approach would be more approachable for all residents of Maryland. My project would be comprehensive yet brief and would allow residents to identify native species and give them new ways to think about their environment. I have seen this idea mostly expressed by American Indians in the US on social media. They are usually expressing mourning their environments that are being taken over by invasive species. The goal of the project would be to mirror these sentiments.m]  

 My digital story would have very minimal dialogue, with a lot of different sounds. In the beginning of my video, I would start with images of invasive species and dialogue over it introducing data points on the invasive species most pervasive in Maryland. The dialogue would be delivered in short stanzas with sounds of invasive species. The first 3.5 minutes or so there would be images of landscapes with invasive species with sounds of invasive species. These images would be recorded by me at my house. This is significant because it is the area that interacts with the most. The nature sounds would also be recorded from around my house and some of my voice overs would be recorded outside. My voice overs would not address the plants and animals individually but there would be text written over the images. And the sounds would correspond with the animals if I was able.  

The photos of the landscapes would transition into one another like a slide show. It would not have any other music other than speech and nature sounds. Once the beginning was over that introduced invasive species and the point of my project was that it would change to native species along with the dialogue. The dialogue in the first half of the video would not introduce the conclusion. The last half of the video would follow the same format of the first half of the video. I hope to find areas near my house where there aren't many invasive species. The sound would also be of native animals.  

The goal of the format of the video would be to immerse the viewer in the landscape presented to help introduce my conclusion, which will have to with connecting with your environment. The first half and second half of the video would compare and contrast the invasive versus native environments also to aid my conclusion.  Ultimately, the goal of my video is to show how different the environments look and how much the ecosystem changes. Not necessarily to show ecological disaster but to show how it feels to interact with an invasive versus native species. I would like to have as little dialogue as possible because the goal is to emphasize the interaction between one person and nature not necessarily between individuals.  

In the dialogue of the video there would not be a glaring clear conclusion because I would like the viewer to have their own emotions and come to conclusions that are unique to some of their own experiences. But I would draw on academic sources in an accompanying text that would expand on some of the conclusions and facts I draw on during the video.  

As mentioned above I would like to capture all of the sounds and photos myself. I may use a video of a landscape if I can. I will also use simple video editing like iMovie to simply capture the video plus my voice overs. I will try to make the transitions and the flow of images seamless because I would like viewer to be immersed.  

Ultimately, this idea is not completely cemented but I like the flow and format of this video. I may like to pull from some of the other topics I outlined above. For a digital story to be personal to me I would like it to be quiet and somewhat related to nature. Although I have no connection to American Indians other than living on their land, I am passionate about native species especially in the sense that changes how we interact with our environment.