As my Instagram page fills up with posts, I can’t help but feel more connected to the planet I live on then ever before.

Week five is under wraps for my Moving Mountains Project and I couldn’t feel more empowered. While I always have tried to be kind to the earth, taking on this project has shown me a new perspective. I now critique my own daily habits and quite frankly, am taking my own advice by trying to live more green. This project is not only about spreading awareness, but to change our own actions and spending the time researching and creating these posts has put climate change front and center in my life. Because of this, I have slowly changed and am consistently thinking about how I can make a difference. It’s great to feel this way after being halfway through, knowing that my posts are being seen and shared by my community. The followers and friends that have shown up for me and have shared my content has also been more than I imagined. With the positivity that has come out of this project, I am sure that the next half will be even better.

This week’s posts consisted of one info-graphic post, one mountain advocate video and one carousel image post. I did change my original idea on post number nine because I felt the topic would be better received as a large carousel image rather than a video post. Overall, I am thrilled with the content I have created this week and as you can see below, I am trying to remain consistent with my color themes and style of info-graphics I am producing. My goal is have a cohesive and professionally branded Instagram at the end of this project’s timeline.

Of course, the majority of my time the past few days was spent recording the mountain advocate video. Before my interviewer got there, I listed out some questions to ask them and found a great example video on Protect Our Winter’s Instagram Page. I have been keeping up with their page since I started my own project because they are advocating for the same cause and I love how easily digestible their content is. I used these videos to show my interviewer what I was looking for and how we would divide the recording into three parts, allowing them to collect their thoughts. This ended up really helping them to speak in complete sentences and allow them to organize their own thoughts. This was a trick I learned from reading the article What I’ve Learned So Far about Interviewing for Video and Audio Stories on Storytelling for Good by the Communications Network.This article was so insightful to read before my recording day because I had never recorded anything professional before and was also feeling nervous. I wanted to make sure I was prepared but also to create an inviting environment for my guest. At the end of it, I had some great clips which were all a bit different. Giving me confidence that I could make a variety of reels out of what we had recorded. I believe my interviewer enjoyed the opportunity and is looking forward to seeing what I make out of all the takes we did.

This week’s work also included some research into ski resorts and what ski seasons may look like in the near future. The information out there is obviously not great, and it is very frightening for a skier like me who counts the days until the mountains open. The bad news was that we are already seeing a decline in the lengths of our winters… about a week shorter every season to be exact. If we continue down this diabolical path, according to Samantha Berman and her article: Here’s How Much Shorter Your Ski Season Might Be in 25 Years, we could lose around sixty days a season! This was shocking to me, mostly because on the east coast we only get around two months of good ski conditions now anyway. It made me think how different skiing would be if the season was crammed into such a short time frame. The article also pointed out that while this is a major wake up call for everyone who enjoys winter sports, this is also the best way to ignite people for change. Professor Daniel Scott was quoted in the article and said it best… “[People] may not care about the loss of the species halfway around the world, or a flood that’s happening in some other part of the world…but sport is often something people care about. And they can see some of these changes happening.”

As this project continues for me, science and climate change have moved to the forefront of everything I do. I have learned to stay updated on the latest news and to always break down information into its simplest form to be posted. So far, with the feedback I have gotten, it seems that this works well for my followers. I now see myself as an advocate, making it my duty to spread awareness and to help people change their bad habits into positive ones for the environment. In the next few weeks, I will be rolling out the best content on climate change, the effects on our mountains, and how we can prevent this damage to our planet. With an idea and a well thought out plan, I’m excited to see my online community come together and to make a difference in our environment.