Berry College
Fundación Progreso Guanacaste

This project serves as the hub for our efforts in the SPA 305 class, which six of the students from Berry are taking. This documentary project will include stories, reflections and reports from the students' experiences. The main goal of this project is to seek a deeper identification with the people and the culture through the production of documentary images and sound. What follows is a series of audio slideshows of photographs taken and sound recorded by the students. Click on the assignment titles to see the students' work.

Assignment #5: Final Project (6/30/08). To finish up our series of audio slideshows produced for this course, each student chose a topic to cover for their final projects. Some students revisited themes from other presentations and others explored new topics.

Assignment #4: Open topic (6/17/08). This week the students were asked to make an audio slideshow about the topic of their choice.

Assignment #3: The Culture of Guanacaste (6/8/08). For this assignment, students produced audio slideshows that explore various elements of Guanacaste's unique culture within Costa Rica, ranging from story about a small town's history to food, dance, religion, and the pride of this region.

Assignment #2: Reports from the Field: Guanacastecan Coffee and the Monte Alto Nature Reserve (6/2/08). This assignment is based on group work that the six students completed when we visited the Pilangosta Coffee Cooperative near Hojancha, Guanacaste and the nearby Monte Alto Reserva Forestal, where the resident biologist, don Miguel Méndez, has discovered several new plant species.

Assignment #1: Primeras impresiones (5/23/08). The purpose of this assignment is to familiarize students with the cameras and audio recorders that we are using. The assignment was very loosely defined, so you will notice, at times, a disconnect between the audio and photographic narratives.