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.