Welcome to our video! This session concerns an ongoing project in which Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center and partners throughout the state collaborate to engage youth from diverse backgrounds in outdoor, inquiry-driven explorations that feature hands-on experiences with data collection and science communication. Our presentation, entitled “Water Stories Summit,” looks at how students engage in field experiences and craft stories to advocate for water issues in their communities. This project is a practice and test of community science and represents our commitment to broadening scientific participation through accessible programs, expanded science communication, and a greater acceptance of how personal experience is interwoven in scientific experiences. We look forward to how new thinkers, science enthusiasts, and curious folks will respond to our water story.

To learn more about the Wisconsin Youth Water Stories Summit, visit: https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/uphamwoods/programs/residential-programs/wisconsin-water-stories/

To learn more about scientific storytelling at Upham Woods, visit: https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/uphamwoods/programs/dots-at-upham-woods/

We would love your feedback and comments. We also invite you to consider the following:

1. Other examples of interweaving personal experience into scientific experiences

1. Other examples of youth advocating for environmental issues in their communities

Your students sound engaged (your staff, too).  Are those camping experiences one day encounters? a week? Overnight experiences or day camp?  Is there follow-up with the students after they have returned to their communities?

Great work here, it looks like the participants are engaged and enjoying this program. I like how you were able to get the Lieutenant Governor involved. I think it helps youth see how important policy makers are in driving protection of our natural resources. I am curious about how you recruit your youth participants, particularly those that may be unfamiliar with nature based experiences or from more urban and/or underrepresented communities? At UConn, we are engaged in an intergenerational STEM learning experience (check it out here!) and while we have been successful at recruiting this cohort, it can be difficult. So rewarding when it all comes together though. Last question...I'm also curious about what kind of technology, if any, you incorporate into this program as teaching tools during the Summit? Thanks and fantastic work!

Great video -- definitely made me want to go back to camp! We have citizen science investigations that similarly get kids involved in these hands-on investigations and then follow up with a journal of middle-school science writing called Findings from the Field. It's been an exciting journey and we've been impressed but not necessarily surprised by the power of writing in the inquiry/thinking process. Like Cary Chadwick above, I'm very interested in the question of integrating technology. I'm also interested in kids' ability to get started on their water stories -- do you find you have to help them along, suggesting how stories might originate? We find students struggle to identify a high-quality research-able question of their own to investigate and perhaps starting with something like a water story would be an option. 

Impressive work and great video! I am delighted to see Lieutenant Gov. Barnes as well. Congratulations on implementing a truly impactful program for the youth of today and hopefully clean water for tomorrow. 

Wonderful video, thank you for sharing! Informal definitely presents unique learning opportunities outside of the classroom. Kudos for the effort. I appreciate Zoe's question about the power of rich narrative tied to their own driving questions! Great NGSS stuff, congrats. I wonder...do you use, or what do you think of some of the tools to help build storylines, like Next Gen Storylines (if applicable to your efforts?), and as part of the written literacy, do you also have them engage in student-student discourse, or reading and commenting on each other's stories?

I love that this program uses "story" as a way to disseminate information. Because so many cultures use storytelling as a teaching method to share and interpret experiences, I'm wondering how you have involved these voices in the creation of your program?   

Wonderful video! Watching this made me think that sometimes I take living near the Mississippi River for granted. Being able to experience nature is very rewarding. When I was a young boy I lived in Milwaukee and being involved with the Boy Scouts we went on adventures to the country to camps such as yours. Experiences like this were ingrained in my mind to this day...50 years later. Are you able to attract groups from the inner city such as the scouts? Storytelling is one of the oldest and emotionally engaging ways of communicating, which is also fun. Great job!

What a beautiful setting to help people learn! Thank you for a great video. 

I'm curious, when you hear the stories, do you help the youth think about what next steps they can do? How they can connect with others?  I'm curious about if there are other organizations involved and how you help youth take next steps.  

Supporting learners' conceptual, analytical, and language practices in science is so important! I really appreciate how your project engages young people in the science of water by creating multiple points of entry through connections with personal experience, data gathering and analysis, and creative synthesis.

I'm curious how the Water Stories Summit, and more broadly the programs at Upham Woods structure recruitment and enrollment so as to broaden scientific participation. Our project team has been discussing and thinking deeply about capacity building, especially issues around equity, scalability, and sustainability, and we would appreciate your insights.

Hi Hiller thanks for sharing your thoughts! We have found that the multiple entry points do help with accessibility. As for broadening participation, we have been cultivating relationships with community organizations and schools in Milwaukee that are underserved. These relationships lead to collaboration and discussions about how to best support their students. We also dedicate a portion of our staff training to conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion. We look at our strategies for engagement and how our programming is or is not inclusive. Investing in our staff as much as our external partnerships has been essential in ensuring a welcoming and accessible space for all learners. 

Thank you for sharing!  I really enjoyed seeing how participants in the program are learning about, and forming, their own relationship to the environment in the watershed.  It looks like an immersive experience for them, adding to the story of their own lives.

This is a great video - thank you so much for sharing, and especially for the land acknowledgement at the beginning.

I loved seeing how proud the kids were to have the lt. governor join you, which makes me wonder a bit about the communicating results and advocacy portion of the work. Can you share a little more about how you're encouraging youth to use their findings? How are you helping them distill findings into specific advocacy asks? Thanks so much for this wonderful video!

Hi Kenne- The stories were shared back with the Lt. Governor and we also followed up with the youth again just this week! Recirculating their stories and encouraging them to conduct a macroinvertebrate water quality investigation at their local water body - properly socially distancing of course. 

What a great resource and opportunity.  My questions, as a fellow UW researcher, are hyper-local, so my apologies if my inquiries are limited in scope: Now that UW extension is in Madison, it would be great to see this program reach out to the schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District.  Are there plans to expand this program locally here in Madison?