Student-produced reports on North Carolina state parks on UNC-TV

Two student-produced reports on North Carolina's state parks were featured on UNC-TV's "N.C. Now." The reports are the ninth and 10th stories in an ongoing series on the state park system.

Students in Dr. Tom Linden's "Science Documentary Television" course (JOMC 562) conceived and produced the reports.

The first piece tells how a 1970s citizens' movement saved the biggest sand dune in the eastern United States from becoming a private development. Jockey's Ridge State Park hosts more than a million visitors a year in Nags Head.

The second report also has its origins in the 1970s, when then-Secretary of the Environment Howard Lee proposed a trail that would traverse the state from the Tennessee border to the Outer Banks. Through efforts of hundreds of volunteers over a 40-year span, that vision of a Mountains-to-Sea Trail is becoming a reality.

Producers for the two reports were international students Kate Moore and Dhruv Tikekar, Serena Ajbani and Mary Wangen. Brooke Benson and Taylor Nawrocki wrote the scripts. Supervising producer was medical and science journalism master's student Alasdair Wilkins, who also contributed video along with Benson and UNC-TV videographers Alan Brown, Matt Maisano and Mike Oniffrey. Linden was executive producer.

The photo above is courtesy of Oniffrey. In the photo (left to right) are Wangen, Benson, an unidentified man in the back, Linden and executive director of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail Kate Dixon.

Jockey's Ridge State Park report:

Mountains-to-Sea Trail report: