How Nashville's youth are retelling the story of Mill Creek.

  • "I think storytelling is important for figuring out problems in the world and helping you to process it. So if you have a traumatic experience, you're probably going to talk about it. And climate change is sort of a traumatic experience...” - Student from 2024 Pilot

Youth engaged with STEM professionals and community leaders in environmental science fieldwork and restoration of a local watershed that has unique biodiversity and is increasingly impacted by climate events, in a city experiencing unprecedented urban growth.

Youth created stories about the land, water, people, and history of the watershed with podcasts, augmented reality (AR), and digital zines, short for “magazines,” which come from a legacy of centering voices not typically represented in mainstream media.

At T-ReCS, our goal is to nurture youths’ place-based learning and environmental science agency through multiple ways of knowing, including digital story creation and storytelling with professionals who create these technologies in their careers.

Two young girls sit at a table in a classroom, smiling and looking at a tablet device, with a microphone set up in the foreground.

Podcast

A person in the foreground holding a smartphone and taking a photo of a boy sitting at a desk, with paper, a keyboard, and other items on the desk, while the background appears in black and white.

Augmented Reality(AR)

Two young women sitting at a table, one with pink hair and the other with black hair, looking at a smartphone. The image is mostly in black and white, with the woman with pink hair in color.

Zine (short for “magazine”)