Betty and the Itty Bitty Bat, How it all started... A way to change how children view Bats

 

    Hi all, My name is Shyann Oglesby and I'm a Junior at Eckerd College. This project isn't one that you were probably expecting to see on this page because it's for children, that's right I said, children. This project was focused on changing the stigmatism of bats in classic culture which has developed because of the dominant discourse in media. The dominant discourse is the way a topic is spoken about or portrayed in the majority of society, and this has caused a problem for one of the most important nighttime pollinators, Bats. Bats are one of the most important animals for pollination of crops with socio-economic importance, basically, the crops we make money off of, but because of the way media portrays them as scary or a nuisance they are not given the protection or the recognization of importance they need, to that, a charismatic species would receive. 

    A large portion of media surrounding bats are horror movies, Halloween movies/references, books, etc., that include vampires, and the lack of bat representation in educational media like infographics of pollinators. By studying ecosee ( the study and the production of the visual representation of space, environment, ecology, and nature in photographs, paintings, television, film, video games, computer media, and other forms of image-based media) we can see how this is problematic for the representation of bats throughout modern society and this visual rhetoric is extremely persuasive especially to immature minds like those of children. So my solution to this was not to give a wordy speech to people who already have their minds set on bats being horrible creatures but to reach the minds of those still learning and expose them to a more positive and accurate representation of bats in a fun and engaging way.

    That's how I came up with the idea of writing and illustrating a children's book. When designing my book I thought about who I wanted my audience to be and designed a book for 3-7 year olds that would show fun visuals that gain the attention of the reader but set the wording to match their reading levels and make it easy to understand. The intent of this book was to give an extremely receptive group of people a new lens on bats that aren't commonly portrayed in media in hopes to change the way they think about bats in the years to come. The book titled "Betty and the Itty-Bitty Bat" was sent to 5 teachers and the leader of the Edible Peace Patch, who teaches gardening to students in St. Petersburg. 2 of the teachers have read the book to their class with 44 students total and it is also available as an e-book on Amazon and a paperback is in the works. To get information back on how students liked this book I made a google form with questions for teachers to ask the students before and after reading the students the book. Overall the students really enjoyed the book and the drawings were their favorite part, many of them also said that after reading the book because they changed their mind and now like bats.

    The issues I ran into with this book were the illustrations taking longer than I expected, getting in touch with teachers due to limitations on school district emails, and formatting while trying to publish my book on amazon. There was really no way to finish the book any earlier considering I was the only one working on it but I was able to use my cousin as a contact to the teachers in my district because her son is a student there. As for formatting the book on Amazon I did a lot of research on how to edit PDF documents on the internet and tried over 10 different formats before getting one that Amazon accepted as an e-book and I am still working on the paperback copy of the book.

Thank you all for reading about my project and my book. I have attached a link to a PDF copy of the book so if any of you want to read it to a child in you life you can access it or you could access it on Amazon with the link provided. There is a link to the google form as well and I would appreciate any responses to the questions!

References:

E., E., & U. (2019, March 12). Who Are Pollinators? [Digital image]. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20191129STO67758/what-s-behind-the-decline-in-bees-and-other-pollinators-infographic 

Howe, D., Howe, J., & Daniel, A. (1989). Bunnicula. A rabbit- tale of Mystery. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

James, P. (2019, August 20). Birds, bats and other animal problems. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://extensionaus.com.au/ozapplepearipdm/birds-bats-and-other-animal-problems/ 

Morneau, L. (Director). (1999). Bats [Film]. Destination Films.

(Morneau, 1999)

Pezzullo, P. C., & Cox, J. R. (2022).

U. (2020, January 31). R/memes - bat soup more like C o r o n a S O U P. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/ewk2eq/bat_soup_more_like_c_o_r_o_n_a_s_o_u_p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Noise Pollution

Image
  Noise Pollution  By Christin Toth   This semester I decided to do my environmental communication final project on marine noise pollution. In cities we talk about noise and light pollution, how there is none when you go out into the countryside. However, many of us do not stop and think that noise pollution exists underwater as well. Unfortunately, there is, and it is a big problem.     The expected silent blue abyss is shattered by the loud blasts of compressed air from seismic surveys and the constant shrill of boats. These are the two culprits I focused on. My project goal was to educate people on how these two things are causing harm to marine life. As well as get 50 people to sign petitions against seismic surveying.  I made five flyers all talking about the negative effects noise pollution has on whales, fish, and the fishing industry to accompany that I collected sound samples of different noise polluters and how th...
Read more

Stop Buying Trash!

  https://stopbuyingtrash.wixsite.com/stopbuyingtrash stopbuyingtrash is a web project intended to communicate the need to rethink our habits as the consumers of the world. Changing these habits is a project I’ve believed in for years and a goal I have set for myself in my own life, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to spread the message. I had originally intended to publicly project images and videos drawing attention to the issue with a link to the site on the walls of high-traffic areas around my campus, but found that I lacked the appropriate hardware to do so. Instead I shared the site via a campus-wide email, and it has now been visited several dozen times. I hope those who have visited the site have found it helpful in changing their perspective on consumption, but communication from site viewers to me is rather limited. Web design is not my strong suit, so I was not able to include all the features I wanted at first, such as an anticonsumpt...
Read more

Stop Toxic Waste from Being Injected Into the Earth at Piney Point

Image
  Photo by Tampa Bay Times This is an actual image of the wastewater at Piney Point being released into Tampa Bay in March 2021 . The water is bright green because it contains radioactive elements such as  phosphorous, nitrogen, ammonia, uranium, thorium, radium, and emits radon.  If you think this shouldn't go into the ocean, you are right.  But it already happened, and we have severely paid the price. A harsh wave of Red Tide was induced for nearly nine months, which made the water unsafe to swim in and killed thousands of marine life.  Now, Manatee County and  the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), want to inject that same waste into the ground, and possibly contaminate the drinking water of millions of Floridians.  This is not okay. Nor is it the only option (despite claims from officials). Water treatment processes, such as filtration and reverse osmosis, have been used successfully in the past at Piney Point. These methods sho...
Read more