Scripting Environmental Research

Abstract

This chapter consolidates lessons learned from the preceding trio of chapters, which offer examples of arts-based approaches to environmental communication in the forms of a documentary screenplay, an audio-visual documentary script and a play script, all drawing on the book’s case study of contestations of Alberta’s identity around concerns over the province’s environmental stewardship of the bituminous sands. The chapter consolidates the author’s eight-step approach to writing screenplays and stage plays, then synthesizes the emerging literature on evaluating arts-based research. It proposes an initial framework for engaging the public in environmental research through writing scripts for the screen and stage. That framework comprises the book’s Appendix.