dre pedemonte is “a writer at heart,” but never branched out into sustainable storytelling until she arrived at gw. she transferred to gw in the spring of 2023 and is majoring in english while minoring in journalism and mass communication. one of the first classes she took was sustainable reporting with professor frank sesno and john sutter in the fall of 2023. she was able to use her background as a commuter student to highlight stories from washington d.c. and the surrounding region, while dipping her feet into the water of sustainable writing.

in this class, students were broken up into teams to write articles about sustainability in the different wards of the district. she was assigned to ward 1, where her team wrote a piece about a local community garden that was facing closure due to lack of funding. “it was an amazing experience to go out into the field and speak with the community and local leaders,” pedemonte said. this story, along with many others in the course, were submitted to planet forward’s storyfest and pedemonte’s team’s story was nominated to be a finalist in the 2024 storyfest cycle. this sparked her initial interest in planet forward and furthered her interest in sustainable storytelling. during an environmental storytelling course in spring of 2024 professor jesse holland jr. introduced pedemonte to the frontline climate fellowship program during his environmental filmmaking course. with her growing interest in sustainability as well as new skills she learned from the course, she decided to apply for the fellowship. 

when pedemonte was accepted into the program she knew she wanted her final story to relate to the chesapeake bay, as pedemonte grew up visiting the bay throughout her childhood. she felt the chesapeake bay touches many states and affects many people and communities in the dmv, making it a topic many people can relate to. she decided her story would be a community-centered piece and she wanted to focus on latino stewardship across the chesapeake bay region. pedemonte wanted to tell the stories about the latino communities’ connection and relationship to the environmental and cultural significance of the bay itself.

the fellowship began on june 10th with a week-long master class on journalism. this week allowed the fellows to meet each other as well as the program mentors while being hosted by gw. the master class featured various workshops where the students learned how to frame stories, create multimedia pieces, and work with scientific and data-based story points. pedemonte saw the first week as “very rigorous, but it helped jump-start our stories and set the tone for the fellowship.” going into the master class week the fellows were assigned to have story ideas in mind. with these ideas they learned how to pitch a story and worked on fine-tuning their original ideas.

after the first week they went back into their communities in order to gather data and begin drafting their community focused stories. the fellowship also included a weekly meeting of the cohort of fellows as well as weekly meetings with their mentors. pedemonte said the research process involved “finding sources, reaching out to multiple people, as it can be hard to hear back, and reporting what they learned.” the last weeks included the wrap-up phase, focused on finishing up the stories and other media products.

at the start of the program each fellow was assigned one mentor to work with. however, they were able to speak with all the mentors in the program to get unique critiques and answer questions related to their stories. pedemonte felt her relationship with her mentor, eva sideris, was very organic and sideris gave her a lot of room to grow while pushing her storytelling abilities. sideris encouraged students to get out of their comfort zones, telling pedemonte, “you are all still students, and you still have so much to learn.”

pedemonte’s story, entitled “here and there: nuestro chesapeake,” allowed her to work with local organizations, including defensores de la cuenca also known as watershed defenders, to encourage, mentor, and inspire latino stewardship within the chesapeake bay. defensores aims to inspire an eco-conscious and diverse community in the chesapeake bay through events like fishing days, canoeing, and also lessons on topics such as water monitoring. pedemonte’s story focuses on highlighting how minority groups can empower restoration efforts in the chesapeake bay through community based organizations. 

having finished the fellowship, pedemonte and the other frontline climate fellows are looking towards the future. pedemonte says the skills she has gained during this program will benefit her immensely as she enters her final year at gw. additionally many of the fellows now are working to pitch the finalized stories they have created to external media outlets outside of planet forward. “throughout the course of this fellowship program, i not only worked with inspiring peers and mentors, but i was pushed to become a better environmental reporter. centering stories around the intersection of community and environmental injustices highlight the powerful community voices that need to be heard. with my finished project, i am proud to have been given the opportunity to do just that. while the summer is ending, i know i am looking forward to continuing my journey as a student, writer, and storyteller.”

this story was originally posted on the george washington alliance for a sustainable future.

the 2024 storyfest competition and winners

this year over 154 stories were submitted from 60 universities within six categories: 

• best story written by a media student 
• best story written by a non-media student
• best multimedia story written by a media student 
• best multimedia story written by a non-media student
• best video by a media student
• best video by a non-media student

additionally, two of the 32 finalists were selected for the gw award for excellence in storytelling and the spotlight award for community storytelling. 

on april 18th, at the planet forward summit the 2024 winners were announced. joy reeves, ayah mahana, and mickki garrity were selected to accompany frank sesno and aaron dye on a nine-day trip to the galápagos islands where they worked to create additional stories to be published on planet forward. sesno and dye serve as the students’ editors-in-residence by helping the students shape their stories, answer questions, conduct interviews, and coordinate with lindblad expeditions and galápagos naturalists.  

these trips have become part of the planet forward tradition, sesno believes the trip helps “incentivize and recognize great student storytelling around the planet and gives students a once in a lifetime awesome experience to travel the world.”

the 2024 trip marks the first time a gw president has accompanied the team on the trip. in 2023, former gw president mark wrighton began to speak with university leadership and trustees about planet forward and the storytelling expedition which led to four trustees joining the 2023 trip to iceland. trustees grace e speights, michelle rubin, judith lane rogers, and donna hill staton self-funded their trip. they found the trip wonderful and enjoyed interacting with the storyfest winners while they sought out new story ideas. upon hearing from the trustees about the trip, president granberg decided she would join the 2024 trip in order to experience planet forward and watch the students create stories as well.

the winners’ stories

joy reeves joined planet forward during her second year of graduate school at duke university. reeves has a background in environmental management and environmental economics and policy. despite having no formal journalism training, she decided to apply for storyfest because she was inspired by innovative initiatives in her field. reeves spent her practicum working in community based environmental management with local environmental justice organizations. this eventually allowed her to connect with the north carolina environmental justice network. this network is where she learned about the “spider web initiative” where scientists are using spider webs to track air pollution and particles in the air. reeves’s submission “your friendly neighborhood spider-party: community scientists use spider webs to monitor air pollution” uses her cartoonist background to create a visual and textual hybrid, found here. 

reeves went into the trip to the galápagos knowing she wanted to write about a community science initiative, and chose iguanas. this initiative uses drones and aerial technology to crowdsource the counting and monitoring of the iguana population through zoom. during covid-19 people had to stay home and work remotely, however this counting still needed to occur. drone technology made this task possible. reeves says “there is no way to prepare yourself for the splendor of the galápagos islands, in all my studies i have never felt the environment instead of just seeing it.” to learn more about this innovative tracking technology check it out here.

ayah mahana, who graduated from gw in december of 2023, took professor sesno’s sustainable reporting class which inspired her to get involved with climate reporting. she said “sesno taught me a lot about journalism, storytelling, and sustainability which brought me into planet forward.” her first story was written about a youth climate organization called zero hour, which can be found here. zero hour is entirely run and funded by people under the age of 30 and based in the metro dc area. they believe that we can turn anxiety about the climate into actions that can change the world. mahana felt the trip was “a once in a lifetime opportunity and privilege”, because “there is nowhere else in the world as pristine and preserved. the animals are happy in the galápagos, and they are much more relaxed versus the rest of the world.” mahana went into the trip unsure about what she was going to write about, and decided to take the route of exploring the island and its people before coming to a conclusion. 

eventually mahana landed on writing about the experience of one naturalist who grew up in the galápagos. celso montalvo has been working as a naturalist for the past 21 years, and is planning on retiring from his role in the galápagos next year. montalvo, while sad to be leaving the galápagos, hopes he is not present for the next el niño. el niños are a periodic warming of sea-surface temperatures that affect the central and eastern tropical pacific ocean, near the equator. el niños usually occur every two to seven years, and can have a variety of impacts on the climate including increased rainfall, droughts, and hurricanes. montalvo believes that with increasing temperatures and growing pressure in the atmosphere the next el niño will be devastating, and could seriously impact the wildlife in the galápagos. montalvo says “i have cherished my time in the galápagos encountering both the ugliness and the beauty of nature, and through it all my love for it has endured.”

president granberg’s impressions

president ellen granberg found the trip equally as meaningful and impactful as the students. granberg believes the work that has been done to protect the land and wildlife of the islands is unmatched anywhere in the world. granberg feels the storyfest winners taught her a lot on this trip. she said, “i am from a different generation. growing up in the 60s and 70s we were taught about climate change, but it was a far off thing not to worry about. the students of the world today are experiencing climate change and they see it as a problem for right now.”

granberg believes the trip will have a lasting impact on her, particularly due to witnessing sustainable tourism and the galápagos’ long term commitment to treating their land as a reserve. granberg thinks that other tourism locations can learn from the prominent and sophisticated role that tourism plays in the galápagos. “they are not taking away from the environment, but actually strengthening it through tourism,” said granberg. she also believes the efforts to not hunt animals and to restore the wildlife to the way it existed before human impact is inspiring. when asked what she would write if she were to write a story for planet forward about the trip she stated, “what really hit me the hardest was the behavior of the wildlife. because there has been no hunting for over 70 years, they were not afraid of us. i became intrigued by the relationship between these interactions and the sustainability of the species on the island.”

president granberg views planet forward and gw’s alliance for a sustainable future as “innovative thinkers on campus who are helping to bridge the gap between departments and solve problems that require an interdisciplinary approach. these organizations are helping to make information available to others about the work we are doing here at gw.”

the storyfest cycle begins each year as schools reconvene for the fall semester, with the deadline to submit stories in late winter. any interested students should keep an eye on planet forward for more information.

this story was originally published on the gw alliance for a sustainable future spotlight page.