Wrapping It Up

It's been a great eight weeks. My CUSP experience finished up well with another sunny day on Governors Island. The summary I wrote of my research for the CUCE-NYC website is below.

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The Urban Environment Program at Cornell University Cooperative Extension-NYC (CUCE-NYC) offers youth an opportunity to explore the green spaces and natural resources that enrich their urban home. Program participants expand their environmental knowledge, scientific skills, social networks, and openness to new experiences while developing a personal connection to the diverse place in which they live. A recent evaluation of CUCE-NYC’s innovative programs on Governors Island has demonstrated that an overnight camping experience just minutes away from Manhattan can indeed accomplish such varied goals. As one young man explained a year later,
“That experience was over the top. That was first time I actually had experience outdoors…actually had an opportunity to camp out with people and…to be on an island that was a part of history…you really feel calm because it’s not crowded, it’s not wild, it’s real quiet, and you learn a lot by just looking…so it was a great experience. That camping was probably something I’ll always remember.”
For him, the trip was a chance to get away and experience something new. For other teens, it was a chance to relate previous outdoor experiences back to their home environment and discover “that there are places like Governors Island in New York City that you can go to…you don’t have to get upstate to enjoy such places.”

The participants also appreciated the social components of the trip saying,
“We got to know different people, and they all live in our area, so it was easy to speak to them and see them outside of the program. So we had a new network of friends.…And we were in a place where we could speak freely. No one had any animosities towards anyone, so it was very calming.” Their shared interest in environmental education activities meant that the participants discovered “other groups that, you know, get into what we do, also on a regular basis.” They felt that “it was good to meet other people and to get to learn stuff about them and what they do.”

Because of its environmental education focus, the program included a variety of instructional activities from which the participants gained specific skills such as maritime knot tying, water quality testing, and taking tree measurements. These skills have been applied since then in academic, recreational, and community settings. The young adults also developed a greater enthusiasm for local history and an awareness of the value of environmental actions. Although few participants retained the general emphasis on sustainability, the experience of carrying food and water in and garbage out reminded them that, “We’re not the only people on this earth. There are a lot of creatures that live around us too.…if you leave any trash or anything on the ground, it could affect them.” More broadly, the trip fostered a general enthusiasm for the outdoors. One young woman described her reaction quite simply as “I love camping now. We’re planning to go camping again,” while another explained that, “It’s gotten me to want to explore my surroundings more because I never knew that the Island existed. And it was fun because…my school is already a water school to explore the waters and our rivers, so [the trip] helped me get an understanding as to why we have to do all of this for nature.”

This two-day, one-night trip to Governors Island is but one of the many programs offered by CUCE-NYC that expose urban youth to the environment around them. Whether they are doing action projects in community gardens, taking scientific measurements of urban trees or air quality, or attending day-long explorations on Governors Island, participants are interacting with nature and developing a stronger sense of place. Research has shown that such experiences enhance personal and community well-being, and that they can spark life-long interests. Capturing this potential continuing impact, one Governors Island participant explained that
“[The experience] forced me to be more open to new things in life, like things I don’t know much about. To be more open minded and do things, to learn more about new things because even though it might seem boring at first, it might be a great experience and that’s how this trip really turned out to be.”

Looking Back and Moving Forward

Time is flying by as I near the end of my time at CUCE-NYC! It has been a busy week of reflecting on our first program, planning the next one, and wrapping up my CUSP research project. We would like this week's trip to Governors Island to be smoother and more fun for all, so we have been brainstorming improved activities, a more appropriate schedule, and easier logistics. Now we just have to wait and see who shows up tomorrow. Every group of youth will be different. Our success might depend as much on our ability to adapt and facilitate activities as on our creativity ahead of time. And we keep checking the weather hoping for a dry day!

In preparation for my CUSP presentation next week, I have also been reviewing my coded transcripts and picking out general themes. And I was lucky enough to do one more phone interview last evening. That makes my (conservatively calculated) response rate 58%! So far I think I am going to focus on (1) sense of place and connections to home, (2) impact of new experiences, (3) learning that occurred during the experience, and (4) memory as research evidence and knowledge capital.

The best part of my week might have been getting access to the pictures from last year's program. I really enjoyed seeing what I have been hearing about. It was fun to see the lessons in action and to pick out specific interviewees based on their name tags. However, I realized that I am kind of glad that I did my interviews first and over the phone. I think the impersonal nature of the data collection method and of the data themselves might have helped the interviewees open up and helped me see themes across multiple transcripts. This way, I was less likely to let initial assumptions or non-verbal cues alter my interview questions, and I was more able to mix and match disconnected quotes. Now I am enjoying adding personalities to my coded interviews and am glad to have pictures to share in my presentation.

On Governors Island

I had a lively week that concluded with an all-day trip to Governors Island with 50 youth ages 12-17. Friday was the first of five such programs that CUCE-NYC will run in July and August. Not surprisingly, we had a lot of preparation to do on Wednesday and Thursday, and we learned a lot on Friday about how to do a better job next time. My role was to plan and lead the icebreaker at the beginning of the day and the evaluation activity at the end. I also helped out with supervision during the other activities (marine ecology, urban forestry, and a scavenger hunt) and with logistics before and during the program.

On the most basic level, it seems that the program was a success. The participants showed up in time for the ferry, the weather was great, no one got seriously hurt, the food arrived on time, everyone got to do all of the activities, etc. However, we definitely struggled to integrate and engage the youth. As my supervisors from CUCE predicted, convincing youth from different day camps to join together for the activities was not easy. I think that the main benefit of my icebreaker was that it let them know that we were serious about splitting up the cliques and having them follow directions. I would have preferred to have them learn about each other instead, although I guess that under the circumstances, setting the tone was important. I think that next week, I may try a different activity that requires subtle rather than explicit group mixing. And of course, next week’s groups may be more interested in meeting new people. Interestingly, the youth I interviewed from last year’s program talked a lot about how enjoyable that component was.

The evaluation activity yielded mixed results. I was sorry that we did not have time for the first part, a game that involved informally polling youth for their views. Having a sit-down activity was good, though. Everyone was very tired by 4:30! We had written a newspaper article about the day with lots of blank spaces for them to fill in in groups. It occurred to me after my supervisor suggested the method that this might not be so participatory, but I don’t think we would have gotten anything at all from an open-ended assignment. I did get to talk to some of the youth during an afternoon activity as well to hear their less-structured opinions. As I became more aware of my integral role in the program as an instructor and disciplinarian, though, I decided to fore go my plan to request follow-up focus groups with some of the day camps in attendance. I do not think that I would get very honest feedback from the youth to compare to my interviews from last year. I think my study will be more complete and valid (if I can use that word) without mixing up different programs and types of data.

Although I enjoyed looking for themes among my transcripts earlier in the week, my critical incident would have to be the day on Governors Island. It was fun to see what I had been hearing about and nice to be working with youth again. It was also a good reminder of how much energy it takes to run a positive program while constantly trying to re-engage a few disinterested, disrespectful teens. And lastly, it was a useful nudge for me that I am not an un-biased participant, observer, and researcher when it comes to camp-type programs. In our CUSP, class we have read and talked about how as qualitative or action researchers we are not and should not strive to be “objective.” I agree that my familiarity with camp and with the Governors Island programs has helped me ask appropriate interview questions and will help me with data analysis. That’s the positive aspect. But I also need to acknowledge, at least for myself, that when experiencing a program like Friday’s, my emotions are not totally clear and straight-forward. It's been a year since I worked with kids, and this past fall, I dealt with some pretty upsetting stuff related to the camp where I used to work. I think that being in a similar setting and leading similar activities on Governors Island was a little harder than I expected (and than I realized as it was going on). I’m glad I’m writing my CUSP report mainly on interviews from last year’s program rather than based on participant observations.

From Interviews to Analysis

It has been a productive week of research. I have now interviewed 10 teens who participated in last year's program! I have also spoken with two other teens who are willing to be interviewed, if I can manage to call at a time when their parents are home. I would still like to talk to a couple more participants because I don't feel that I've really reached saturation and repetition of content. While I wait for the last few interviews, though, I have started looking at my data. Depending on how I calculate my response rate, it's either 53% or 76%, both of which seem pretty good. Of the 33 names and phone numbers I was given by CUCE-NYC, 2 said they did not participate, 10 were disconnected or the wrong number, 2 hung up on me immediately, 2 could not be reached despite repeated calls, 3 chose not to be interviewed, 4 are still on my list to call again, and 10 were interviewed. I have been pleasantly surprised by how friendly people (parents and teens) are when I call.

The content of some of the interviews is quite thoughtful and interesting. I am just starting to code my interviews, so I do not have any preliminary results yet. I think that I will code first for remembered activities (e.g. measuring trees, camping out, learning knots) and for comments on program impact. Then I will go back and code for more conceptual things like transfer to home, interacting with new people, and feeling close or far from NYC. I will also divide the quotes in half by camping/social experiences and educational lessons because eventually I want to compare last year's findings to this year's. I am using Atlas.ti on Athena to do my coding and analysis because I intend to use this program for my dissertation, and I think more practice will be helpful.

In the past week, I have also had a chance to meet with my supervisors here at CUCE-NYC to plan the up-coming one-day Island Explorers programs. I'm looking forward to getting out of the office and to working with youth again! I'm also excited about leading some activities at the end of the day that will serve as a closing and an evaluation. If I can work it out, I would like to do a follow up session with one of the groups that attends, as well, so I can get a little more data to compare a day program to a residential one.

Although I was excited after every interview, perhaps the most useful phone conversation I had this week was with a member of my dissertation committee. We were discussing the possibility of a methods chapter/article to my dissertation, and he suggested that rather than trying to document the validity of retrospective interviews as program evaluation, I could write a "how to" article with a discussion of the method's strengths and weaknesses. That type of paper not only seems more feasible to me, but also more useful and inclusive of my various projects. As I said to him, what I'm doing this summer isn't hard or complicated, it's just something we rarely think we can do. The method is also something that fits with non-formal education programs that lack pre-post tests, extensive contact with youth, and the resources for longitudinal data sets. I'm excited the prospect of drawing on all of my research activities (including this CUSP project) to help others do retrospective research as well.