Watershed Filmmaking and Mapping

We teach the workshops for field trips during the school year and for camp programs in the summer. The workshops are adaptable for all levels, first through twelfth grade, and adult. The workshops can be reserved by any group.

Beginning in 2017, we worked on what would be the short film “A Portrait in Water,” which is an underwater map of the Rivanna River and one of its sources. The video contrasts the turbidity of the water at the source at Sugar Hollow with the turbidity at Darden Towe Park. “A Portrait in Water” won the Virginia Film Award at the RVA Environmental Film Festival in 2019, which took place at the Byrd Theatre in Richmond, and Best Experimental Film at the Carmarthen Bay Film Festival in Wales, also in 2019.

After “A Portrait in Water,” students were asked to make new video about the Rivanna River. They learned our documentation process of filming, taking notes, and identifying filming locations. Students were collaborators on “In the River’s Flow,” a film that examines the trash and other debris left behind in the river: plastic, an aluminum can, and a fishing bait container. “In the River’s Flow” has shown at the Denali National Park Educational Center, among other screenings.

ArcGIS StoryMaps became part of our workshops after our staff completed National Geographic’s course for educators, “Mapping as a Visualization and Communication Tool in Your Classroom.” This five-week class iss offered free along with other courses on geo-inquiry, plastics, and global warming, as well as on video, audio, and photography (those three are sponsored by Adobe). The mapping course introduced us to StoryMaps, and because our underwater cameras have GPS capability, going into that multimedia format for our workshops made sense. StoryMaps are the modern-day equivalent of Lewis and Clark’s journals, which included writing, drawings, plant specimens, and maps. 

We examine the negative and positive aspects of exploration and documentation, both historically and in the present day; exploring in order to preserve the environment represents for us the best purpose for exploration. We combine environmental, cultural, and historical mapping, since environmental health is also connected to human use and history. For example, we have mapped the Rivanna River crossings in Thomas Jefferson’s time, and we also focus on current cultural events, such as the FLOW festival. The FLOW festival, conceived as part of the River Renaissance, features riverside dance, plein air painting, and site-specific sculpture.

Our StoryMap topics in 2022 included the paw paw stands at Darden Towe Park (because yes, we’re hoping to eat some paw paws), otters along the Rivanna, piece-by-piece documentation of the trash picked up by the Charlottesville Catholic School on a day of volunteering (a collaboration with LCEC and Albemarle County), the history of the name of the Rivanna River, and the photography work of our summer campers. Sometimes a StoryMap is an essay and a photograph; at other times it is film, journal notes, and a map. The media is chosen to best suit the subject.

Meanwhile, our filming and photography of the Rivanna River continues throughout each season, as we document the shifting weather and flow patterns and the impacts of climate change, development, and environmental protection efforts. We regularly film the river at the Exploratory Center, but we also visit other locations, such as the dam at the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, and across the river at Pen Park.

We invite community members to take part in our filming and mapping workshops and to help us build a digital and film library. We are also seeking ways to connect with the mapping projects of other organizations, and we welcome collaboration. Our mapping, because it involves the arts and personal stories, adds new dimensions to scientific observations and data.