Pictured: Students in Professor Jason Jaacks’s experimental class at URI geared towards environmental storytelling. Photo contributed by: Eddie Melfie
Hours upon hours of work were put to a halt every 45 minutes to pull the dredge cutter-head, a huge tool used to siphon sand from the river, from the water and clean out plastic debris. Jeans, wrappers, scooters, bottles and plastic bags were some of the items pulled from the Providence River this past winter. Every few years, the sand from the bottom of the river is dredged to allow for sedimentation to be cleared from filling the channel.
“I was initially tasked with dredging out Waterplace Park . . . we anticipated some trash from urban dredging. However, within the first week, we filled up a dumpster full of trash so at that point I knew we had to do something different,” Dan Goulet, Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) project manager, said. Goulet wanted to raise awareness about the plastic pollution problem in Rhode Island to help make a change.
Goulet put out a call to local Rhode Island artists to make an art piece with litter that was pulled from the dredging. Turning trash to treasure is no easy feat. This is when the Steel Yard, a workspace for industrial art and education, in Providence got involved.
The artists fleshed out many ideas and eventually Goulet and Tim Ferland, an artist from the Steel Yard, came up with the idea for a trailer that could be transported around Rhode Island to raise awareness about plastic pollution and how long trash lasts in the environment.
The trailer was built out of plexiglass, sand and pieces of trash found during the dredging process. Trash found in rivers eventually impacts the ocean by flowing directly in with each changing tide. The Steel Yard created steel pieces to compliment the trash such as fish, seagrass and crustaceans that can all be found in a healthy ocean.
With the supervision of CRMC, existing partner organizations such as the Nature Conservancy, the City of Providence, the Providence Foundation and the 195 Commission helped with the dredge and removal of debris from the rivers in Providence.
CRMC then partnered with the University of Rhode Island (URI) to bring the story of the trailer to life.
Assistant Professor of Multimedia Journalism at URI Jason Jaacks had an idea to make a documentary piece about the trailer and the life cycle of how a piece of trash pulled from the bottom of a river can be transformed into a work of art. Pioneering an experimental class at URI geared towards environmental storytelling, Jaacks got students involved, having students contribute to all aspects of the filmmaking process — from production to editing and everything in between.
“It was a really fun collaborative effort between my peers and I, and getting the chance to interview the minds behind such a unique project was a rewarding process,” Eva Baker, master of environmental science and management student, said.
From learning how to work with different members of the community such as interviewing local artists and Steel Yard workers, students were able to take away invaluable knowledge and experiences, according to Eddie Melfi, a junior journalism major.
“I thought it was a uniquely structured class and ambitious to mix in graduate and undergraduate students together. It definitely makes for a fun learning experience having everyone at different levels in their career learn from each other and give each other advice,” Melfi said.
This student produced documentary inspired by the Steel Yard trailer is one of the many new and creative ways to bring science communication to life.
With the potential to travel far and wide across Rhode Island schools, communities and beyond, this colorful plexiglass art made from debris, presents an opportunity to use as an educational tool to demonstrate the implications of plastic pollution on our environment and why it is so important that we care for the Earth.