Paleo Podcast

Using Participatory Narrative Inquiry to Evaluate Student Learning in a 4-H Paleontology Summer Camp

Logo for the Paleo Podcast, created by Nicole Parra.

Welcome to the Paleo Podcast !

For my master’s thesis, I created the Paleo Podcast from a compilation of interviews that youth recorded during 4-H summer camp about paleontology and science podcasting that I designed, implemented, and researched.

I created the camp with Luis Torres, a graduate student at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and my advisor Dr. Jamie Loizzo. The camp had four paleo-focused lessons about dinosaurs, vertebrates, invertebrates, and careers in paleontology. Then, I also gave a lesson to the campers about what a science podcast is, my journey from the lab to the microphone, and how to record good audio for their podcast. In pairs, the campers used iPads to record their podcasts with some prompting questions from yours truly about what they learned from the day’s camp.

This camp was produced with funding from the Paleontological Society’s Education and Outreach Grant and in partnership with The Streaming Science Project and Clay County 4-H.

The Final Paleo Podcast

After the camp, I analyzed the podcasts campers created in pairs using qualitative research methods and found three themes:

Paleontology
Fossils
Fascination with Dinosaurs

After arriving at the three themes, I used a method called narrative inquiry to pull quotes from the campers’ podcasts and collage them together into one final Paleo Podcast organized around the themes. You can listen to the podcast narrated by me below.

Research Products

Thesis

This podcast was part of my master’s thesis, which you can view a PDF of below:

IN PRESS

Conference Presentation

Screenshot of the GSA abstract for Paleo Podcasts.

You can view the full abstract from my research presentation at the Geological Society of America’s 2023 annual meeting by clicking this link.

Journal Article