BIO7: Environmental Storytelling with ArcGIS Storymaps

Consider the following questions to help your group clarify the scope and specifics of your project.

Purpose - Your motivation behind creating this project. 

• What is the purpose of the storymap? Is it to inform? teach? motivate? persuade? entertain? advocate? share?
• What essential message do you want to communicate?  What are 2-3 key takeaways from your project.
• How does this story benefit from multimedia elements?  Why a storymap and not a paper or a video?
• What other sotyrmaps has been made on this topic and how does yours differ? 

Audience - Who is this project for?

• Who is your intended audience? (e.g. legislators, researchers, specific consumer base)
• How will you reach this audience?
• What prior knowledge (if any) might they have of the topic?
• What do you want your audience to do after seeing your project? (e.g., check out a website? talk to their friend about a topic? contact their legislative representative? etc.)

Perspective - The point of view from which you will speak from

• Who is telling your story and why?
• From what perspective will your story be told? How does that impact the language used?
• Is your perspective made explicit to your audience?  Why or why not?
• Does your perspective reinforce or challenge harmful stereotypes in your field?

Design - How you organize and present the components of this project

• How would you characterize the tone of your storymap? (e.g., formal/informal? upbeat?). 
• How will the content be sequenced? (e.g., lead with problem, lead with context, chronological)
• Who is represented in the images and audio and when?  Why?
• How does your structure and organization support the purpose of the story you are trying to tell?
• If doing community work, who has ownership of the media when the project is over? Why?