Island Press Video Conference

Island Press and SER Student Video Contest with $500 Scholarship Award

Why Restore?

This probably isn’t the first time you’ve been asked that question, but here’s your chance to share your answer with the world. Produce a video no longer than four minutes that addresses the question “Why restore?” You can share details of an ecological restoration project you started, facilitated, or in which you participated that explores restoration, its importance to ecology and the broader environment, and its impact on the community at large.

Rules

Sampling a forest using quadrants.
Photo by: Evelyn A. Howell

Contest is open to students and early-career professionals no more than two years out of school. Videos must be one to four minutes in duration and you can work individually or in teams of up to four. Videos must be uploaded to YouTube (include tags “islandpress,” “SER2013,” and “restorevideo”) and entrants must email restorevideo@islandpress.org with the full name(s), email address(es), and academic or professional affiliation(s) of each person in the team, a link to the video, and a 400-word description of the project by September 1, 2013. 

Judging

Videos will be embedded on this page beginning September 3 and the public will be able to vote for their favorite through September 8. Voting will be open to the public from September 3 – 8, 2013. A panel of judges chosen by the Society of Ecological Restoration and Island Press will review the five videos that receive the most votes. From the top five, the judges will choose the winning video based on criteria that include adherence to the principles of ecological restoration (resources, including SER’s primer on ecological restoration, available online), quality of presentation, and persuasiveness of the argument for the merits of ecological restoration. The creator(s) of the winning video will be notified by September 12.

Prize!

The person(s) who created the winning video will receive a total of $500 to apply towards travel expenses associated with attending the SER 2013 World Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, October 6-11, where the winner will be announced. If none of the winners choose to attend the conference, the scholarship may be applied to support their work. In conjunction with the conference, Island Press will issue a press release highlighting the winning video and the four other popular vote winners. Island Press will also offer the winner(s) the opportunity to work with its publishing team to author a short electronic book on restoration for inclusion in the Island Press E-ssentials series.

For more information see the Island Press website.