Sisbro Works with Amazing Students From the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative

Sisbro Studios has been hired by the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative of Michigan to film some truly amazing student-led stewardship projects, as well as teach the students how to create their own youth-led films. Just how amazing are these students? High school students from Alcona High School make hundreds of gallons of maple syrup each year for their community.  Fifth graders from Sanborn Elementary School build their own underwater robots from scratch, in order to help the Thunder Bay Marine Sanctuary learn more about zebra mussels on shipwrecks. A middle school class from Rogers City conducts water tests to provide data for their county commissioners.

Here is an article about the project, written by Patty Ramus, for The Alpena News.

"Film to capture students' efforts" by Patty Ramus

Students in three different school districts are getting a chance to describe their environmental stewardship projects through the film medium.

The Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative is working with Sisbro Studios of Portland, Oregon, to do a promotional video that tells the stories of students' environmental stewardship projects at a regional level. The stewardship initiative is a six-county initiative in Northeast Michigan focused on getting students engaged in stewardship projects that benefit the community. The initiative brings teachers, students and a number of community partners together to make this happen, said Brandon Schroeder, Michigan Sea Grant Extension educator.

Sisbro is a business co-owned by brother and sister team Robert and Laura Sams. The pair has worked with school groups across the country and done a number of productions, such as Stranger in the Woods.

Schroeder said Sisbro was brought to Northeast Michigan through different partnerships. The Samses began filming on Thursday by working with Sanborn Elementary School students as they conducted their Thunder Bay Watershed study project, which involves the use of underwater remotely controlled vehicles.

Today, Sisbro is filming Alcona Community Schools' high school students going through the maple syrup production process. Agricscience teacher Brian Matchett said the filming will involve roughly 60 students from his silviculture, environmental science, zoology and botany classes. The students wil demonstrate the steps of maple syrup production - tapping, collection, evaporating, bottling and labeling at the school's Sugar Shack.

The students had conversations with Laura and Robert Sams through video conferences to prepare for the filming.

"They've really done a nice job of working with the high school students to prepare them to do the leg work for the video," Matchett said. "It's helped my students solidify their learning through having to present it in another form."

On Saturday, fimling will be done at Negwegon State Park to showcase the interpretive signs Matchett's environmental science classses developed and installed there. Sisbro will catch up with Rogers City Middle School students on Monday  morning and film the City of Alpena Marina with Sanborn students in the afternoon. On Tuesday, Sisbro will document Rogers City Middle School students as they monitor water quality on the Trout River and visit Onaway High School's environmental science class if time allows, Schroeder said.

"It's a really great opportunity for these students to showcase their work. They're geting to learn the art of sharing their stories through video and get to be a part of that," he said.

Schroeder said the promotional video will be a short piece shown mainly to teachers and community partners to share the different things going on with the stewardship initiative.

"We're hoping to have that done in the summer," he said. "The idea is to tell the story of these regional projects through the eyes of the students."

"In addition to producing the video, the Samses are giving guidance to students on shooting good video, developing the story and matching that to video so they can make their own small storeis about the projects," Schroeder said.