Hi Amy! 

Thank you for sharing your experiences with water and the dry climate in Colorado. I know what you mean about needing to drink a lot of water here. Great questions about the project, too. 

The project received funding in January 2020 and shortly thereafter we needed to rethink a lot of our plans because of lockdowns and travel restrictions due to the pandemic. Initially we had planned to go to communities to record stories and to listen to community concerns in person. Since we couldn't go in person, we used surveys and a snowball approach -we asked for referrals from our library partners in the region, and from our Indigenous partners- to schedule interviews to ask, “What does water mean to you and your community?” We've listened to communities for over a year now and have loved every bit of making relationships and learning about water in the Four Corners. The knowledge from the interviews and recorded stories has had a profound effect on influencing the direction of the whole project.

We started sharing the recorded stories when we launched the We are Water website in December 2020. Looking at website and social media analytics, we are seeing an increase in the number of people who view the stories, share the stories with their networks, and then afterwards follow the project on social media. Our library partners have said how much they like the recorded stories, and they re-share our social media posts about the stories on their library social media platforms so their patrons can take a look too.

For measuring the effect recorded stories have on listeners, we are currently designing those types of questions. The stories will be incorporated into the traveling exhibit experience as part of hearing about regional and local perspectives about water, and as a way to invite more community members to add their story about what water means to them - in this way we hope people will see themselves, their communities, and their culture reflected in the exhibit. When the exhibit starts its tour (hopefully at the end of the year), we will be asking community members' thoughts about the stories. I can't wait to hear what they say!! 

Thank you for this wonderfully helpful response! Yes, it will be fascinating to hear from community members. I'm going to comment more below on your response to Katie.

Hi George! 
Thank you for viewing our video, and thank you for your questions. From the start the project has been a partnership with a number of libraries, and library serving organizations. Our library partners are such a pleasure to work with and have been right along side us to connect us with community members, as we've adapted the project to respond to library needs during the pandemic, in designing the exhibit, and now during implementation of the project.

The We are Water project springs from an exciting collaboration between libraries, scientists, Indigenous science educators, learning researchers, and informal educators.

One of the project PIs, and 2 staff are colleagues from the STAR Library Network, which is a hands-on learning network for libraries and their communities across the country. STAR Net focuses on helping library professionals build their STEM skills by providing “science-technology activities and resources” (STAR) and training to use those resources.

We also partner with colleagues from the: 

• Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL)
• Arizona State Library
• Colorado State Library
• New Mexico State Library
• Utah State Library

At the community-level our library partners are (the list will grow as the exhibit travels in the Four Corners):

• High Plains Library District (CO)
• Pine River Library (CO)
• Diné College Library in Shiprock (NM)
• Aztec Library (NM)
• San Juan Library System (UT)

In addition, our colleagues at STAR Net  recruited a library advisory group from the Four Corners who have experience serving Latinx and Indigenous patrons. The advisory group has been instrumental in reviewing learning resources about water and providing guidance on how to structure training for library staff. 

We've also been so grateful for advice from the Library Research Service as we've noodled over how to approach research and evaluation in a library setting. 

Thank you for your appreciation of our design decision to focus on personal stories and connections to water in the region. We intentionally chose to respect the diversity of voices in the region and to show our commitment to deep partnerships with rural, Latinx, and Indigenous communities. Water issues in the Southwest are complex involving connections to cultures, economics, policy, and science. We wanted to hear from communities directly and have their words steer the direction and content of the exhibit and programs.

Thanks so much and keep the comments and questions coming!  

Thanks, Katie for your kind words about the video and project! 

You are correct that because of the pandemic all the libraries we partner had limited patron offerings (and some were closed) for the past year. Only recently have libraries in the region been able to offer more services. The project received funding in January 2020 and shortly thereafter we needed to rethink a lot of our plans, and how to adapt the project to pandemic-times. We meet with our library partners early on, and also distributed a survey to libraries in the Four Corners, to gather information about what water issues were important to them and their communities, how libraries were responding to the pandemic, and to ask how we could help and support them during this time. We listened to libraries and they helped us come up with a list of new ideas. These new ideas led to education resources that were not part of the original plan. But, what great ideas! The project has really grown in such beneficial ways due to the wisdom of library staff. Let me list a few of these new ideas that we got from libraries and what we then developed.

1. Take & Make Kits: packaged activities for youth and families to pick up at their library. Really great for libraries offering curbside pickup. We've made take & make kits called "Be a Water Detective," "Battle Water Pollution," "Grow a Waffle Garden at Home". These kits will offered to libraries that host the exhibit in the future. Libraries loved the take & make kits! 
2. The We are Water Coloring and Activity Book. We mailed these to libraries in the Four Corners. What a hit with library staff and patrons! 
3. World Water Day Regional Celebration: We organized virtual and take home activities for libraries to opt-in to providing their patrons so their communities could celebrate World Water Day.
4. Virtual Book Club: We've hosted 2 book clubs about water in the Four Corners. Our next one is in June about the acequia irrigations systems.
5. Online Water Trivia: Who doesn't like to test their water knowledge and see if they can be the top scorer? 
6. Clearinghouse of Water Activities for Libraries: a collection curated by STAR Net for libraries in the Four Corners

We also have other programs in development. The most exciting one that comes to mind is the stop-animation storytelling workshop! 

We continue to engage and learn from our library partners. They are such wonderful partners and have been alongside us each step of the way. 

Hi Ari, thank you for that wonderful feedback! Working with community members to record their stories about water has been one of the most enjoyable and important parts of this project, and it's really great to hear that the stories are resonating with others as well.

Patty posted a great summary above of how we adapted our project to COVID—the biggest change was that we pivoted to develop virtual activities and educational resources that our library partners could use while our traveling exhibit was put on hold.

Thanks Dan! Our storytelling workshops are still in the development/piloting phase, so we haven't held them with our core audiences yet, but we will be working directly with our library partners both to recruit people for piloting and to market when the final version of the workshops are ready. 

We plan to hold a couple different types of workshops:

• Oral history workshop where library patrons and other core audience members can learn about best interview practices and learn how to record and share stories with their communities. We also plan to turn the lessons/guidelines from this workshop into a kit that people can do on their own time.

• Stop-motion workshop (developed in partnership with Emily Fairfax at CSUCI) where library patrons and other core audience members can learn how to tell a story through stop-motion photography. Participants in this workshop will get a package of materials (felt, construction paper, pipe cleaners) to create the imagery for their video. 

These workshops will emphasize the importance of story in understanding what water means to communities in the Four Corners region and will also help facilitate the sharing of stories among community members and communities. We wanted to create a space for people to share their stories about water and to provide the opportunity for people to record or tell their stories in creative and fun ways. 

The development process includes (1) thinking about community interests and talking with partners to get a sense of what kinds of storytelling workshops community members would like to participate in, (2) identifying learning goals and outcomes, and (3) choosing what medium we wanted to work with (audio recordings, video, stop-motion, etc.). For the stop-motion workshop, we partnered with a colleague who has a lot of experience teaching students how to create stop-motion videos.

Thanks for the detailed response!  I'm super curious to hear more about the workshops once y'all start running them.

Hi Amy, we're so glad people are excited about the workshops because we are too! And yes, we do plan on posting videos/stories on our website—the stop motion videos may be placed in their own section on the website, but any videos created from community interviews will be posted at the link you shared. Audio only community interviews will be posted here.

I should also note that we will only post interviews, stories, and videos that community members have given us permission to post!

Hi Jennifer, 

Great to see you on the Video Showcase, and thank you for viewing our video. During the pandemic when our project got started, we developed many learning resources that were designed for specific age groups from youth to adults. For our upcoming exhibit and onsite programs that we are designing, we are creating a multi-generational learning experience so families, and visitors of multiple ages, can have a fun and engaging experience.

To facilitate multigenerational learning:

• we will have exhibit text be in multiple languages; language inclusion is an important part of multigenerational learning 
• a specific area of the exhibit will request visitors to share their story through multiple media such as uploading an audio/video recording, written reflections, artwork, poem, photographs with captions. We have included kid height and adult height areas for contributions. 
• Another area of the exhibit will be a community mosaic. As visitors of all ages color in pieces of the mosaic, an illustration about water in the Four Corners will reveal itself. We are hoping to leave this community created art work with libraries that host the exhibit.  
• We will be developing an oral history kit for kids, families, and community members to use so they can record family and community water stories

For the exhibit and programs, we are designing them for entire families, and extended families, with plenty of opportunities for family members (and community members) to interact with each other (and hopefully spark conversation), and create an environment where families and people of all ages feel comfortable. 

Thanks, Julie! I'm glad you like our project and our approach to STEM learning. 

Currently the project has evaluated: the process of the project, documented our pivots to still serve communities during the pandemic, and the relationships among partners that make the project possible.

Our next phase of evaluation and research will focus on gathering information from youth, community members, and libraries involved in the project. We are currently designing questions that will try to understand, 

• if participants involved in the project see themselves, their community, or culture reflected in science and in the exhibit
• if participants have an increased interest and awareness of multiple ways of knowing about water in the natural world
• and, if participants feel a sense of connection with communities in the region 

We can't wait to have the exhibit tour the Four Corners soon! I look forward to learning what community members think and have to say about their experiences with We are Water. 

Hi James, 
Thank you for highlighting our work on Cleannet.org. 

Projects working on and experiencing drought in other states and regions of the U.S. are more than welcome to use the learning resources we created for We are Water. In fact, in creating our resources, and exhibit text, we have been inspired by organizations working on water issues in the U.S., including our project partner Western Water Assessment. 

For our grant from the National Science Foundation, We are Water has a specific geographic focus on the Four Corners Region. We would be thrilled to connect with and learn from sister projects working on drought and water issues in other regions.

Hi Jaymus, Thank you for your kind words! 

We are so happy that you've found our educational resources and stories useful. We will continue to update our website as our library of stories grows and as we develop new resources. And while we haven't finalized the dates, our traveling exhibit and associated programming, will start its tour at rural libraries in the Four Corners region early next year. 

Indige-FEWSS is an amazing project, and I see a lot of potential for collaboration! We should connect to chat more about centering community needs and perspectives in educational experiences.