During my senior project, I want to explore and immerse myself in the field of environmental justice in all possible ways. I have always been passionate about the environment and always felt like it is one of the most, if not, the most pressing issue of my generation. While I had studied both the scientific and political implications of climate change, pollution, and global warming at school, I rarely felt like I was doing enough to contribute to solving these issues. Being knowledgeable about the issues that were harmfully impacting our planet and taking the small steps like recycling, reducing water, energy, and meat consumption I knew was important but nearly negligible when looking at the big picture. Unfortunately, climate change has become a controversial topic in some people’s minds. For this reason, working to raise awareness and possibly change perspectives on environmental protection, sustainability, and the people most affected by climate change and pollution seems like a worthwhile project. And what better way to reach a large audience than through documentary films? So for my senior project, I will set out to work on a documentary that follows the story behind the legal struggle between the Chippewa Tribe and Enbridge, a Canadian oil shipping company that has been polluting their native lands for decades. Shadowing Mary Mazzio, the director of this film and founder of the 50 Eggs independent film production company, as well as working as a production assistant and research intern will immerse me in a project that brings together the legal and political aspects around Pipelines 5’s relation to the Chippewa Tribe through storytelling. Fictional pieces of art and film often run the risk of filtering or modifying narratives, but the documentary film as a medium has the possibility to lift up indigenous voices in the most direct way. Immersing myself in the field of environmental and indigenous justice through this project will allow me to understand if I could pursue my passion for this field in the future and, more specifically, whether I can see myself taking a more creative route over a traditional one. During this project, I expect to be challenged first and foremost by being in a working environment rather than in a scholastic or academic environment. I expect a large part of this to be learning on the job, adapting to the behaviors and mannerisms that are customary for the job, whether it be at the 50 Eggs Office, or on the Bad River Band Reservation in Wisconsin. Being a gofer on set or in the office will teach me practical skills specific to the job, such as logging footage and transcriptions and keeping production books, as well as broader understandings of the film industry and the activism around shutting down the pipeline. During this experience, I hope to become more familiar with “less traditional ways and approaches to environmental justice”. Understanding that say, policy, law, and engineering are not the only avenues to tackling environmental issues is liberating. Additionally, this film is one among many different ways to creatively contribute to the process of raising awareness around environmental and indigenous issues caused by pipelines around the country. This platform simply expands the possibilities of reaching a large audience. The academic portion of this project will be largely comprised of the preparatory research on the legal struggles and implications of shutting down Pipeline 5. Reading the legal briefs and background materials to the case as well as understanding the customs and history of the legal easements between the Chippewa tribe and Enbridge will also be crucial in being able to contribute to the project. The experiential part of the project will be filled by the field and office work. While I expect my contributions to research to be able to be completed independently from the office, my experiences working at the 50 Eggs Office will be even more immersive. Additionally, if the wetlands around the reservation become accessible at the end of April, the opportunity to do work up there may arise as well. The service requirements of this project in part will be filled by the gratuitous work I will be providing to the production of the film and the tribe. In addition to this, I hope to volunteer for the Billion Oyster Project to help restore the oyster colonies in the East and Hudson rivers. This sort of community service will both expand my understanding of natural solutions that contribute to the restoration of ecosystems and inform my work with pipeline 5 and the preservation of the wetlands around the Bad River Band Reservation. This project will be meaningful to me if, by the end of the experience, I gain an understanding of what the environmental justice field can be like and what the various approaches to these issues are. The final outcome of the documentary will only be accessible once it is released to the public. Since the filming of the documentary will continue far beyond the length of the project, through the summer and likely into the fall my senior project must be judged by the process of the learning experience rather than by the outcome.