A new mug from Photojojo looks just like a Canon 24-105mm lens, including a lens cap for a lid. (hat tip: Laughing Squid)

Minutes after last week’s earthquake struck Chile’s mainland, Robinson Crusoe Island was pummeled by a tsunami that, according to AP reports, covered nearly two miles of the island. When the wave retreated, it took with it nearly all of the island’s small fishing settlement. Just about everything is wiped out – their school, community center, fishing boats, supply stores, homes.

Some of us who created the site back in 2006 have put together a new video showing photos from before and after, and we have links to where visitors can find out more and donate directly to the island’s people. Check out (and share!) the video below, and go to Chasing Crusoe to learn how you can help the island survive.

(and a special thanks to Andrew Sullivan for posting our message on his blog!)

Tsunami Relief for Robinson Crusoe Island from Más a Tierra on Vimeo.

In the opening segment (embedded below), I spoke with a group of high school students from San Francisco about how they think about health: what are they concerned about? Who do they trust for info? How would they raise a healthy teen?

With the help of partner stations and freelance reporters, I also collected answers to the same questions from teens across California, and built an embeddable Flash interactive to showcase their responses. I think the content turned out well. Hopefully, we can use the module as a template for further projects.

The first episode of Health Dialogues since I’ve signed on as the web producer aired yesterday. It includes an audio slideshow I put together after a trip to Balboa High School, a public school in San Francisco that has banned junk food, sodas, etc. from campus.

I’ve also added a “my latest work” section to the right sidebar, where you’ll find links to my latest work online.

I just finished up my stint directing a reporters camp in San Rafael (see previous post for more details). Lots of fun turning kids on to multimedia reporting. Nick News — a kid-focused news show on Nickelodeon — called us yesterday. They’ll be coming out next month to film me and some of the kids for a piece they’re doing on summer camps. So if you watch Nickelodeon on a regular basis, keep an eye out for me…

A gallery of all the slideshows is in the works. As soon as that’s up, I’ll link to it. In the meantime, follow this link to watch a slideshow the kids produced last week, after we took a trip out to Infineon Raceway.

For the past several years, kids attending the camp have had the opportunity to interview a variety of famous and interesting people in the Bay Area. Their writing appears throughout the year in Fast Forward Magazine, which is distributed to schools throughout Marin County.

This is the camp’s first foray into multimedia, and I think the kids are enjoying it. Here’s a link to a slideshow created by two boys who went to Pixar studios and interviewed Andrew Stanton, director of Wall-E, before the film’s release.

I was there in mid-February, while the new pups were weaning, and took some photos.

Use the arrows or thumbnails to navigate the images. Mouse over a photo to hear audio.

(In response, my family has subsequently promised Kate a wonderful waterboarding experience for the holidays…)

I put together a narration of the experience with a couple photos, below.

Enjoy.