Sabrina Strelkov

Bachelor of Science, Environmental & Conservation Sciences, Human Dimensions of Environmental Management Major, 3rd Year

Course: AREC 173 (Fall 2021) with Instructor Dr. Brent Swallow

Who was your community partner and can you describe the project objectives? 

Our community partner was with CJSR 88.5 FM Radio and our objective was to create an audio-documentary surrounding the topic of food. We chose to talk about the ways that the pandemic has affected local farmers markets, zoning in on the Old Strathcona Farmers Market. The audio-documentary was then sent on to CJSR to be broadcast.

What was your biggest takeaway from your CSL placement? 

I actually found that this CSL placement really helped me realize what direction I want to take in my future career choices. I gained a lot of new skills and got an introductory look into the world of journalism and radio. It also gave me a new-found respect for farmers markets and local foods. 

How can you apply any newly gained knowledge/skills to your future endeavours (courses/employment/volunteering)? 

I will be using a lot of what I learned while working on this audio-documentary in my future endeavours. I'm actually creating another audio-documentary in one of my courses right now, for winter semester 2022. Working with CJSR has taught me how to assemble a podcast/audio-documentary and given me great insight into the process of storytelling as well as journalism. I'm not sure what exactly the future holds but I do hope I can go on to use these skills to spread awareness about environmental issues through different storytelling mediums.

What are some of the ways that COVID-19 has affected your community partner or your placement?

The pandmeic has forced all meetings between our group and our community partner CJSR to be held online with Zoom. This also made it a little bit more difficult to borrow equipment or use their studio, so my partner Ryleigh and I had to get creative with how we approached the technical side of the audio-documentary. I do think the experience would have been enhanced had the pandemic not interfered, but we all still made it work, and were quite successful in doing so. I hope the situation improves so that future students who are placed with CJSR can experience all this project has to offer. Regardless, it was quite a fulfilling experience.