COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) 鈥� When you think IMAX, chances are your mind goes to those immersive documentaries that take you inside volcanoes, deep under oceans, atop mountains or to distant planets. Or to those widescreen films that bathe you in backstage experiences with iconic rockstars or Hollywood special effects.
But, this year, the state of Ohio is using the technology to tell an environmental comeback story closer to home.
鈥淥hio: Wild at Heart鈥� features the state鈥檚 top-ranked park system to highlight wildlife conservation efforts and the restorative power of outdoor recreation. Filmed over more than a year, the $2.5 million project 鈥� paid for with information and education funds 鈥� is drawing large crowds at science museums around the state and heads next year into classrooms.
Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Mary Mertz calls it 鈥渁 love letter to the mission of protecting our natural resources and expanding opportunities to explore.鈥�
Ricky Jackson, a conservationist and taxidermist from Gallipolis, Ohio, in the state’s Appalachian region, said he wasn’t expecting to leave the theater feeling as if he’d seen a documentary filmed all across North America.
鈥淚t was just really, really unexpected to see so much diversity all filmed in Ohio,” Jackson said.
After viewing the film at its premier at COSI, Columbus’ science center, last fall, Jackson said he thought the film was 鈥渧ery cool, very well done,” and he learned a lot.
鈥淚t was very motivating,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t made you want to see parts of the state you’ve never seen, or experience nature in Ohio in a way that you just didn’t know was available.鈥�
Narrated by Ohio State football great Archie Griffin, the documentary depicts the state’s landscapes at a sweeping scale 鈥� from the lighthouse-dotted shores of Lake Erie in the north to the towering limestone formations of the Hocking Hills in the hilly south.
The efforts take on outsized meaning given the historical context. It was the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland that sparked the modern environmental movement and the creation of the . Just ahead of the 50th anniversary of the fire six years ago, the river’s fish were declared once again .
Many more environmental success stories are featured in 鈥淥hio: Wild at Heart.鈥� They include a former Blackhawk pilot’s efforts to successfully relocate rare trumpeter swans to Ohio marshlands, as well as wildlife biologists’ program to repopulate once endangered bald eagles. Ohio鈥檚 governor, Republican Mike DeWine, and his wife Fran, show off family-friendly nature paths lined with pages from children’s stories known as 鈥� .鈥�
Nature’s mental health benefits are also emphasized.
鈥淧eople feel like you have to go far away to experience nature,鈥� a naturalist on screen says. 鈥淲e restore nature, nature restores us,鈥� a volunteer says.
People feature in the film credit recreational activities as varied as hiking, kayaking, birding, ice fishing and dog-sledding with restoring their bodies, benefiting their mental health, combating loneliness and salvaging their self-esteem.
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Videojournalist Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos contributed to this report.
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