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Your Voice, Your Community

How can we help others in our community understand the different sides of the wolf reintroduction issue before they vote in November? 

Coloradans will soon be voting on the ballot initiative to allow gray wolves to be reintroduced into our mountains. By participating in this Quest, you may now be the issue experts in your community. You have a clearer understanding of people’s perceptions, the scientific facts and findings, citizen perspectives, and the ballot initiative itself.

Virtual Student Guide

With knowledge comes responsibility!

How can you objectively share what you know with others so they can make their own informed and empathetic decisions on how they want to vote?

Your Voice Across Colorado Contest

Do you want to play a bigger role in helping others across Colorado understand this complex issue? 

Your Voice Across Colorado Contest gives you an opportunity to create an innovative social media post that presents balanced and objective information about wolves or wolf reintroduction in the medium of their choice. When submitted to Captain Planet Foundation, it might be selected to be broadcast on our organization’s digital platforms to reach a large audience across Colorado and the world! 

Submissions accepted from October 1-30! 

Examples of media to use for your project include, but are not limited to: 

  • Photography
  • 2D art (traditional drawing or painting, printmaking, digital drawing, or painting, etc)
  • 3D art (sculpture, 3D computer graphics (modeling/rigging/VFX, etc), ceramics, etc.)
  • Infographic 
  • Film, video
  • Animation (2D, 3D, stop-motion)
  • Performance (Drama or Dance, must be submitted as a video file)
  • Poetry, Spoken Word (Can be submitted as a written document, or as a video of you presenting aloud)
  • Essay (Limit 500 words, can be submitted as a written document, or as a video of you presenting aloud)
  • Music (Audio or video)
  • IgniteTalks, Prezi, graphic design, creative mapping

All Film, Performing Arts, Animation, and Music submissions must be submitted as an .mov or .mp4 video file that does not exceed 5 MB, and must not be more than 2 minutes.

Submissions will be judged by an expert panel on the following criteria:

  • Creativity
  • Factual Information
  • Clarity of Message

Submissions will be disqualified if they contain the following:

  • Overly biased or false information
  • Attempts to coerce voters’ decisions
  • Extreme gore or violence
  • Explicit language or content

How can we teach other people in our community about wolf reintroduction so they can be informed and empathetic?

Make a plan to share what you’ve learned with others in your community. Results from the community survey (if you have them) can help guide your thinking. As modeled in this Quest, you will want to present the science related to common public misperceptions and give a balanced explanation of different perspectives from across the state and in your community. That way, community members can decide for themselves how they feel about wolf reintroduction. Their position could be the same or different from yours, and that’s ok! Your goal is to give a balanced and objective presentation. 

Points to Ponder

Points to Ponder

  1. What are benefits to helping my community understand the different sides of the wolf reintroduction issue? 
  2. What are some challenges I might encounter? 
  3. What do I bring to the table that could make my presentation more effective?
  4. How can I create a presentation that addresses all sides of this issue?
  5. If your class gave the wolf survey to people in your community at the beginning of the Quest, now is the time to make sense of the survey results.

How can we customize our presentation for the audience we choose? 

Why • Who • What • How • Where • When

WHY

WHY is it important for you to create a public education project? 

WHY is it important for citizens to understand the scientific facts and dispel misperceptions (myths) about wolves, and to empathize with the different citizen perspectives about reintroducing them to Colorado?

WHO

WHO in your community would benefit from knowing more about wolves and their proposed reintroduction?

The people you choose to talk to could be friends and family and/or others who live in your community. Think about:

  • Who is impacted or concerned most by this issue?
  • Who may not have access to the information you now have?

WHAT

WHAT information would be most helpful for them to have to be able to make their decision? 

  • Scientific facts related to misperceptions (myths) about wolves
  • Ballot initiative to decide about reintroducing wolves
  • Reasons for different citizen perspectives in your community and across the states. (If you did a community survey, are there parts you would want to share?)
  • Insights you gained from the Quest
  • Where to get more information: You could post the link to, and possibly share, the free online Wolf Quest. Any video(s) or text in the Quest can be shared publicly. 

HOW

HOW would this group of people prefer to hear about this information?  

  • Photography
  • 2D art (traditional drawing or painting, printmaking, digital drawing, or painting, etc)
  • 3D art (sculpture, 3D computer graphics, modeling/rigging/VFX), ceramics)
  • Infographic - graphic design, static or video 
  • Film
  • Animation (2D, 3D, stop-motion)
  • Performance (dramatic or dance video)
  • Poetry, spoken word (written or videotaped)
  • Essay (written or videotaped)
  • Music (audio or video)

WHERE

WHERE would it be best for you to present this information? 

  • Social media platform of your choice
  • Newspaper op-ed or letter to the editor
  • email to family and friends
  • School newspaper, announcements, website
  • Paper brochure to distribute
  • Website (personal, organization, or business)
  • Contribution to a voter education campaign  
  • Letter writing or human-interest essay to individuals or a publication
  • Other?

WHEN

WHEN should you present this information? 

  • Personally share by the beginning of October, if possible. Election Day is November 3. Colorado citizens will receive their ballots in mid-October. It would be most helpful for your creative public-education project to be shared before then. 
  • If you want to participate in Your Voice Across Colorado Contest to have your project be considered for a larger social media platform, please submit to us before September 28. Details about this contest are above.
  • Max. file size: 50 MB.
educator note

What does the research say? 

This article describes a large-scale research study that examines these questions: 

  • What are the attitudes of citizen voters in Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico to wolf reintroduction?
  • How did their attitudes change when they heard persuasive arguments both for and against wolf reintroduction? 

As you prepare to share your new understanding with community members, consider examining the results of this study. 

  1. Read the Abstract and summarize what they did. What insights do you think this study could give you about your community survey and interactions? 
  2. Starting on p. 157, read the Results and Discussion sections, and summarize their findings on General Trends and Persuadability in a way that a friend or family member could understand. 

Article: The influence of persuasive arguments on public attitudes toward a proposed wolf restoration in the southern Rockies, from Wildlife Society Bulletin.

The following form is part of a short series of checkpoints for you to complete throughout your Quest. Let us know important information about your journey, and help us improve the quality of our Quests!
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