Donna Zehner
Science Communication
Hello and welcome to my website!!! Thank you for taking the time to peruse my work. This page is about the service work I perform as a science communicator. Please watch the following 30 second video for a brief introduction.
Projects
Tower Talks with Donna (2023 - 2024)
Season 2 of Tower Talks with Donna includes 16 videos glamorizing life in a fire lookout tower. My goal with this series was to build upon the first season videos by creating more entertaining short stories. I performed all work associated with the creation and production of these videos; each were published on the following social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube. My hope is that with the increase in intensity and frequency of wildfires, these videos bring both joy to wildfire crews, and show the public a different side to life in fire to increase our outreach efforts.
Tower Talks with Donna (2022 - 2023)
In this 11 video series, I performed all work associated with the creation and production of these videos. My goal was to target multiple social media platforms to publicize and promote life in a Fire Lookout Tower with the objective of attracting more people to the career. Specifically, I created three short trendy videos for Tiktok titled: Tiktok (Reality), Tiktok (Last Day), & Tiktok (Life); 3 longer videos for Youtube titled: Weirdest & Scariest Moments, Lookout Responsibilities, & Tower Fun - Dancing; 3 reels for Instagram titled: Welcome Video, 1sec in the Lookout, & Importance of Lookouts; and 3 educational videos connecting science to society which could be published on any platform - these are titled: Salmon, Sunsets, & Smoke.
Saving Our Heroes (2021 - 2022)
My work was published in a publication with the University of Oregon's Science Story group. Our goal was to establish an archive of the current environmental conversations happening in the Willamette Valley in Eugene, Oregon. "Saving Our Heroes" is a collection of videos about the occupational hazards of smoke wildland firefighters experience. I created these videos using a production studio and performed all scripting, taping, and editing myself. The main objective in these videos was to explain the types of meaningful conversations and questions citizens can have with wildland firefighters about smoke exposure.