Protecting Our Florida Wetlands

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https://ourfloridawetlands.wixsite.com/ourfloridawetlands


As we are all students in Florida, our group wanted to focus on a state issue. We decided that we wanted to spread awareness of habitat loss in the Everglades. This natural area is extremely important to the health of Florida’s ecosystem. To advocate for this issue effectively we framed our campaign in hopes to become newsworthy from our viewers' emotional investment.  

In order to reach some of these goals we had, we decided to create a website in order to display pictures of the everglades, provide information, and give the opportunity for viewers to get involved. On our website numerous pages of information can be accessed, including an endangered species list where viewers can learn about some of the species that inhabit this location, links to donation pages, and volunteer opportunities to really get involved. This represents clicktivism, as people can take action through one link.












Ways to Donate!: http://www.evergladesfoundation.org/giving/


In addition, a virtual tour is included for viewers who can't visit the wetlands. This provides the viewer with the opportunity to see what exactly the Everglades looks like, providing a visual representation of what they are reading about. We hoped that use of visuals would bring forth any interest from viewers towards the issue. Visual rhetoric, in short, is used to persuade through the use of images. This can be a very powerful tool, especially for environmental issues like ours, hence the Prezi presentation. We chose our visuals with an apocalyptic rhetoric in mind in order to further play upon the emotional impact of our campaign to the viewer.











Ways to Get Involved: https://www.epa.gov/citizen-science/how-find-citizen-science-projects


As we were creating the website we ran into a few problems. The website generator we were more familiar with was no longer free. For our platform, we ended up using Wix which had a very limited array of creation options. We could either create a pre-generated site and edit it or start fully from scratch. Another issue that occurred while making the Prezi was finding useful information pertinent to the presentation, including specific information about current events and threats that we were hoping to include. Not enough research is available to the general public and through our website, we hope to change this.


References: 

  • Pezzullo, P. C., & Cox, J. R. (2018). Environmental communication and the public sphere. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

  • Giving. (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2020, from http://www.evergladesfoundation.org/giving/

  • How to Find Citizen Science Projects. (2019, April 30). Retrieved September 23, 2020, from https://www.epa.gov/citizen-science/how-find-citizen-science-projects

  • Threats to the Ecosystem. (2019, August 13). Retrieved September 23, 2020, from https://evergladesfoundation.org/the-everglades/threats-to-the-ecosystem/

  • Wildlife 2060 - Habitat Loss. (2020). Retrieved September 08, 2020, from https://myfwc.com/conservation/special-initiatives/wildlife-2060/loss/

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