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THE MOUNTAIN FUTURES YOUTUBE CHANNEL: SHARING MOUNTAIN SCIENCE WITH A GLOBAL AUDIENCE
Mountain landscapes are critical to the well-being of billions of people, yet they are often remote and difficult to access which makes it hard for people to connect to them. Still, incredible research is happening in mountains, including in the lakes and rivers they support. Despite the rich and important potential for storytelling, the people doing mountain research often exist in relative anonymity for the public. In 2024, I launched the Mountain Futures YouTube channel with a simple goal: raising the global profile of mountain science and the people studying these critical ecosystems. With no filmmaking experience, it has been a lesson in learning by doing. Just over a year in, we’ve grown to 600 subscribers from around the world and our videos have been watched more than 90,000 times. In our view, this is just the beginning. For this poster presentation, I will share the premise behind the channel and the plan for how we will sustain and grow it into the future. I will also invite mountain researchers—particularly those studying mountain lakes, streams, and the cryosphere—to connect with our team and perhaps be featured in a future video. If nothing else, I hope this poster will encourage mountain limnologists to think outside of the science communication box and pursue new avenues to share their work.