“Our generation is facing a lot of problems, and they are really complicated. If we all work together, we do have a chance to make this world better.”
So said a Montauk School student, speaking in a video made by the Young Montauk Filmmakers. The program, sponsored by Concerned Citizens of Montauk, introduces middle-school students to a wide range of C.C.O.M.’s environmental projects, integrating science, technology, engineering, arts, and math, and culminating in a film about what they’ve learned.
This year’s video, which can be found on YouTube, is “Young Filmmakers 2025: Water Is Life.” Water quality is a top project at C.C.O.M., which publishes weekly water quality tests during the summer, and bi-monthly or monthly reports the rest of the year.
Jody Kennedy, a retired digital media arts teacher from White Plains, N.Y., who summered in Montauk for 35 years before moving, co-founded Young Filmmakers with Kay Tyler, C.C.O.M.’s executive director. “I met Kay in a meeting,” Ms. Kennedy recalled by phone Monday afternoon, “and Kay and I hit it off like two sticks of dynamite.”
Septic upgrades were a focus of this year’s filmmaking program, said Ms. Tyler, who was also on the call. “What better way than to have children tell the story, and at the same time have them learn about what water quality means,” she commented.
The 10-week program, with 13 students enrolled, was directed this year by Rebecca Holloway, C.C.O.M.’s manager of environmental advocacy. Students learned about outdated septic systems, saltwater invasion, runoff, chemicals, and fertilizers, among other threats to clean water, and also about mitigation methods. During a week focusing on Big Reed Preserve, for example, they explored a freshwater passage used by alewives and American eels in their spring migrations.
In smaller groups, with extra help from Tyler Van Slyke and Matthew Corron, they collected drone footage and worked on the film script.
Ms. Kennedy acknowledged being worried at first that the project might be over the heads of middle schoolers, but was quickly disabused of that. “When they start to dig in,” she said, “and we make sure what we teach and how we teach, it becomes concrete in their minds.”
“It’s powerful when they start to figure it out,” she added. “They think they’re only 12 and they can’t do anything, but they can do so much . . . they realize that they have power and intellect, it shapes them and it shapes their future.”
“I think they’re intrigued by this,” said Ms. Tyler, “and it should be intriguing — that there is a cause and effect to everything you do in your environment.”
She mentioned that after completing the program, a student had reached out to C.C.O.M. to report a local water issue. “Jody,” she told Ms. Kennedy, “you’ll be very excited to hear that one of your students sent C.C.O.M. a video identifying a place with one of the storm drains overflowing during rain, and identifying that this is a water quality issue that’s draining straight into the ocean.”
Next year, C.C.O.M. will collaborate with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on some projects, and will have high school interns helping to do some of the legwork, she said.
“We want it to grow every year,” Ms. Tyler said. “With every year that passes, we are receiving more and more support, not only from the school but from the parents. And the kids really love it as well.”