Educational Films of 1928: When Nature Calls Edition

Today, we have three educational films from 1928. All three have an environmental theme. Let's get into it shall we?



The first deals with conservation and reforestation. It opens with some striking images of a lush green forest that is quickly juxtaposed against some clear cut forests. We soon learn that the images are part of a movie being shown to a classroom. The students decide they should reforest an area and the rest of the film is a field trip showing them digging and planting evergreens.

As someone with some environmental background, the most surprising moment comes near the end. The students finish eating their box lunch, dig a hole, place all the trash in the pit and light it on fire. Of course, this is before the age of plastics, but it is still surprising to see.



The second film deals with fish hatcheries. Most of the film is taken up by seeing a microscopic view of how fish mature from an egg. I'm sure there are modern versions of the same thing, but I found the film fascinating.It cannot be embedded so click here to view it.



The final is the most bizarre. It's a health and the environment piece that spends the first two-thirds showing pictures of daily life and asking "What is lacking here?" over and over again. At the end it starts telling us to get out and get fresh air. I'm sure this was intended to be used by teachers in an interactive lesson plan, but it's very oddly put together. It also has a moment of unintentional hilarity as a girl overacts the hell out of waking in her bed.

I like taking a few moments to watch these. They are little time capsules of what people were wearing, what life was like and what they were thinking about. On the last point, not a lot has changed.