Overnight on the Island

I have been making slow, but steady progress in my effort to contact and interview participants in last year’s Explorers Day on Governors Island program. I’m up to six interviews now, and I am hopeful that I can do at least two more. I have tried calling everyone on my list and eliminated those numbers that are disconnected or never answered. Now I just need to actually talk with some people for whom I have left messages!

I have been transcribing my interviews as I go along, so I can already begin looking through them for themes. I am noticing that the participants were particularly interested in the historical aspects of the island, that they enjoyed the opportunity to meet youth from other groups, and that the primary environmental education lesson learned was to pick up one’s trash. I am especially interested in the youths’ perceptions of how wild or developed Governors Island is. Some described being outdoors and camping for the first time as a great adventure while others mentioned that they were expecting fewer buildings, but for all of them, the experience of spending two days and a night on a deserted island without amenities was a real journey away from home. The proximity to Manhattan and Brooklyn improved the view at night but did not really foster a sense that they were learning about their own environment and own history. For the youth, the experience was more about trying new things with new people.

Because my dissertation research focuses on memory as an indicator of program impact and explores how the residential component of an environmental education experience can lead to more influential, longer-lasting episodic memories, I began my CUSP research with a similar focus. I was wondering what the youth would remember and what aspects of the program would stand out. However, as I struggle to increase my sample size and reflect on my interviewees’ comments, I am beginning to wonder whether I might more effectively frame this study in relation to a different research question. My original dissertation plan was to explore the different learning outcomes created by day and overnight programs. A few days ago, it occurred to me that combining my interview data with my observations and informal assessments of this year’s one day programs could be quite useful. The activities, location, and participants are similar—just the length is different. Based on my interviews, I am now particularly curious how the knowledge that one is camping out on the island influences feelings of novelty, excitement, remoteness, and applicability of learning to home. Combing data collected a year later with those collected on-site still bothers me a little after emphasizing the unique value of long-term reflection in another study, but I am excited about adding this new day-residential lens to my work. I’m not sure why it didn’t occur to me earlier, seeing as how I wrote pages and pages on the topic last summer for my A-exam!

My First Interviews

My CUSP research project focuses on what youth who participated in last year's overnight camping trip on Governors Island remember of the experience. I am interested in the overall impact of the program and whether certain aspects of the program were more memorable than others. In the past week, I have managed to interview 3 of the 30 participants. Two other youth declined to participate because they said they did not remember anything. I have one more interview scheduled for this evening, and I'm hoping that I will be able to interview a total of 8 youth. Calling from a list of phone numbers compiled in April 2006 is not ideal. At least of the 7 of the numbers have been disconnected and there was no answer at another 4. But I'm going to keep trying, especially with the youth for whom I've left messages.

Speaking with the youth (young adults) was, of course, the highlight of my week. I was quite pleased to hear that for one person the experience has helped him realize the value of trying new things and for another person the trip was his first opportunity to go camping and be outdoors. Interestingly, these interviews and the reflections shared were not especially different from what I heard from adults in central Indiana who participated in a similar program as 10 year-olds. I did not really expect that NYC youth who went to an island just off Manhattan as 17-19 year olds would say the same things. I think it is a good reminder that maybe the experience itself is more powerful than all the specifics we emphasize in our lessons. Such a finding might be great for my dissertation, which focuses on how the residential component of an environmental education experience is influential, but not so great for Cooperative Extension educators who would like participants to remember measuring trees! A conversation with one of my co-workers today about what we will teach in this year's Governors Island program reminded me that my results could easily be misinterpreted as "our educational efforts don't mater." To the contrary, I think that the fact that these youth were willing to be interviewed and could talk to me for 15 minutes about a program over a year ago, shows that it did make an impact, maybe just a different impact.

In the coming week, I will continue tracking down interviewees and begin planning activities for this year's program. I am also transcribing each of my interviews as I go along.