Thank you so much for your comment and your suggestions! Lately, we have been thinking about having students have access to their own individual Zoom rooms so they can record interviews or conversations between themselves. This way, they later access the audio recording that Zoom produces. Phone calls are tough because we fear the sound quality might not be as high as we'd prefer it to be. 

The biggest issue really is that it's tough to connect students with the scientists, experts, and community members for these interviews. In the f2f version, we could just invite them to the dept where we held our program and students could impromptu capture conversations and interviews. In this virtual version, there are several more steps to getting them connected in the same "informal" way. The way Zoom sort of intrinsically creates this highly structured interaction has turned out to be such a boundary for students to take that leap and set up Zoom interviews. 

How are you managing with your group in Nepal? Have you tried alternatives or is it on halt for now? The loss of f2f is a huge challenge indeed. 

I'm actually meeting with them on Google Meet in 7 minutes so I can't say much right now.

They're often more adept with the technology than I am despite my PhD in computer science. The difficulties seem to be more motivational, including following through. My biggest contribution is just to be there and show that an international partner thinks their work is worthwhile (it's actually excellent). That's hard to do virtually when I can't just "invite them to the dept" or drop in on theirs.

I hear you on the difficulties of not being about to just "drop in" and have impromptu meet-ups. We faced the challenge of motivation and follow-through with getting students to complete podcasts in this past second year without us being able to just sit next them and support their hard work.

In any case, I sincerely wish you luck on your project. 

Also, I laughed at the latter end of your comment "...despite my PhD in computer science" haha. Thank you for the laugh!

Thank you so much for your comment and feedback!

We tried mobile hotspots as well! And just like you've said, it did not totally solve the problem for us either.

Virtual field trips is such an interesting idea! I've seen some of those actually, but never thought about how they might have a place in our program. Thank you so much for this suggestion. I wonder how students have been responding to those? 

Thank you so much for your feedback and contributions! I hope you do have a moment to listen to their podcasts. They're truly fabulous. We intended them to be much shorter, but the students had free reign to make them as long as they thought was necessary to really tell the story they wanted to tell. We have not yet posted our Year 2 podcasts because the virtual redesign of the program made it quite difficult for us to support students in completing podcasts more quickly. We are almost there though!

Thank you for sharing your experience. We actually tried a home hands-on activity last year, but we had them go off the Zoom call, work on the project, and then report back to us about it later on. We were so worried about Zoom fatigue when we made this decision--but this year, we're trying something more similar to what you've described where they will work on a hands-on activity while the expert is on the call. We have high hopes that it will be more effective and engaging. 

We would be very happy to compare notes!

Thank you so much for your question. There were a few ways we did this, but it is very much a work-in-progress for how to do this appropriately and better each year. One way was we made sure to include Tribal experts and scientists as speakers over the course of the program. Students were able to speak with them, ask them questions, and interview them. We also ensured the same with non-Tribal scientist and experts within the community. This allowed them an opportunity to consider the challenges and fabric of environmental problems from different epistemological standpoints. Another way was to include information and talk about the Tribe's core values in terms of the role it plays in who they are identity-wise and thus the role it plays in considering the complexities of socio-scientific problems. I hope this answers your question, but I welcome follow-up questions!

To add to Devi's excellent answer, we also had an advisory board made up of Tribal members not directly involved in the project, who provided guidance to ensure we considered cultural and community aspects and who encouraged us to include Tribal Elders as sources of knowledge for the students.

Thank you so much for your question. We have actually not yet intentionally considered how students can utilize their podcasts in their school communities. We do know some students have talked about what they have done with Voices to Hear with their classes and teachers. We also have placed the podcasts on the Coeur d'Alene's Department of Education website for anyone to access. We have been musing over how to transform Voices to Hear in to a program that is more heavily connected to local schools, but have not yet fleshed this out. In other words, we totally agree that integrating this work and ideas in the classroom is important and would enable them to sustain this knowledge! 

In terms of recruitment, we actually just learned yesterday that the program has a growing positive reputation in the community so it looks like we will not have to worry about recruitment moving forward. 

Thanks so much for your comment and question! We have an advisory board that is entirely composed of Tribal community members who we share the project's process periodically in order to get their feedback about alterations that should be made to more appropriately address the needs of youth in their community. One of our project leads is a Tribal member as well and simultaneously the Director of Education for the Tribe so she greatly informs the direction of the project and curriculum. We meet weekly as a team where we all report on the components of the project we are each working on and are always prepared to make changes in the best interest of the community and the youth. In sum, it takes a lot of communication!

You can listen to the podcasts here. 

And, yes! We've thought about that model, but it's so tough to keep students engaged and wanting to come back in order to debrief when they're on their own at home with no support from us. I think that model probably works best when students are off doing something highly interactive and maybe even outside, but so much of the work they do as part of Voices to Hear is listening, thinking, and constructing a story -- all in collaboration. It's tough to find the right balance!

Awesome, thanks for the great info and link to the podcasts!  And that makes sense regarding the engagement model.  

Thank you so much for your question! Because we were recruiting students within the community as it is a project for this specific community, I am not sure that there were different students who were able to participate as a result of moving to a virtual program. Some of our college students were able to be more flexible in terms of where they were during the course of the program however since many of them attend colleges further away. 

Your question is a really interesting one though. In another project myself and another member of this team led last summer called WE SAID, we were able to to extend who participated as a result of the virtual setting. It was actually such a fabulous experience because we had high students from India, the US, and Mexico in a space altogether where they were able to talk about local equity issues in their home countries. It was such a unique experience that few young people get to have and in many ways, that's what I see as the value of virtual learning space -- an opportunity to interface with a wider and more diverse set of people. 

Thank you so much for your comment and questions. Our college students who acted as mentors to our middle and high school students had a tough time keeping the youth engaged. It was also really tough for them to complete their podcasts in terms of having enough time to create and puzzle together their story pieces -- mainly because it was hard for them to keep the youth online for too long.

On the flip side, the breakout room function proved to be very useful for students having specified time to build relationships with one another. Additionally, the Zoom features like the reaction button, chat feature, and hand raise function allowed for a diversity in participation from students based around their comfort levels. We really saw students who might be quieter in real-life spaces share more in this virtual space. 

In response to your second question, students left the program with a better understanding of what the Tribe is already doing to meet the challenges they face. They get a real sense of what has gone in to the decision-making processes in meeting challenges. This has already come up as a finding in our evaluation data. Our research data is so far showing that they are becoming more capable systems-thinkers as well.

This is an excellent response. Thank you for your insight. I am glad that technology, especially the Zoom breakout rooms worked in your favor, and that your students left the program with a better understanding of the tribe's needs.

I remember doing community-engaged work in graduate school. My professor taught me the word 'cultural humility." You may already be familiar with this word. If not, it means to reflect on how one's own background, experiences, expectation, and overall privilege affects one's interaction with someone else. Anyway. I share this with you because it was a constant theme that came up for me as a student, and something my classmates and I valued even after we finished our community-engaged work.

Overall, I am excited about your work. If you have time, please provide feedback on my video: https://stemforall2021.videohall.com/presentati... -- I would greatly appreciate it. 

Thank you!

I have not quite got the hang of hitting "reply" instead of posting!  Thank you so much for your question and see below for a response to your post.

Hi Kristen. I failed to hit the "reply button", but see below in answer to your post!

Hi Bridget, students were investigating environmental issues within their community, or issues that impacted their community and then through talking with Tribal and non-Tribal experts and scientists, working to address those issues, the students learned about decision-making and complex systems thinking. So, in answer to your question, the podcasts were framed around environmental issues specific to the Tribal community and how those people working in the Tribal Natural Resources Department worked to find solutions.

Thanks, Julie, for this information. Excellent example of a meaningful project, with an authentic audience.

Hi Patricia, yes we should and it sounds as thought your project has similar aims. I am heading over to view your video right now, so thanks for the link :). We would love to talk more and share our experiences with you and likewise, hear more about We are Water.