Chapter 1: Digital Storytelling, Creativity and Weird Science

Revelation #19

“Digital storytelling helps students develop creativity and innovation skills needed to solve important problems in imaginative ways.”

There’s a really crappy song by Scandal from 1984, sung by Patty Smyth, a chick with a mullet. It’s called “I am the Warrior,” and my friends and I used to make fun of it. We would adopt the same intense tone and sing “Am I going to miss the bus? I am The Worrier. Are my eyebrows plucked enough? I am The Worrier.” And so on.

Then I turned into The Worrier.  I worry about a lot of things, but I really worry about the environment, especially with regard to global warming. When I consider what we might be facing – with methane trappers destabilizing, polar caps disappearing and water levels rising – I feel pretty hopeless.

Recently, though, I heard about a proposal by a couple of scientists to build 200-meter tubes that will be tethered to the ocean floor and will compel the colder, nutrient-rich water to upwell and spur the growth of algae – which will trap CO2. The weirdness of the idea has captured me. Not just because a few of the best scientific minds think it might actually help, but also because of the creativity involved in this approach. Need cold water for algae? Go get it!

That’s why Revelation 19 resonated with me. I love the idea of students becoming “practical artists” and developing creativity as a marketable skill. Ohler claims that “digital storytelling helps students develop creativity and innovation skills needed to solve important problems in imaginative ways.” Perhaps there have always been important problems of the magnitude we’re currently facing, but in any case, we need the fresh, new ideas of this generation of thinkers. Digital storytelling can help foster the kind of creativity we’ll need to solve the more worrisome problems of today’s world.

And then I can go back to worrying about my eyebrows.