Month: February 2026

Emplace Contribution Draft – Requirements for EVERYONE: Draft Due 11:59 Sunday – Eportfolio – 100 words Minimum , Pictures of past data & research 

Sam, Jasmine , Laylah , Isaiah, Zee, Jaiden, Ayiana 

Intro & Conclusion- together everything else 

Isaiah Otey (Me)

For my EMPLACE contribution, I am creating a podcast designed to communicate the purpose and importance of our project in a way that is accessible to a wide audience. When I think about who I want my podcast to reach, I do not imagine a narrow or purely academic group. While students on campus are an important audience, I want the message to be understandable and meaningful to anyone who may encounter it. A podcast has the ability to travel beyond the classroom, which means I have a responsibility to make the content clear, inclusive, and engaging.

Students are a significant audience because they are often still forming their habits, perspectives, and awareness about larger issues. Many are learning how to think critically and make independent decisions. Through the podcast, I want to help them understand not only what the workshop is about, but why it matters and how it connects to their own experiences. Because podcasts rely on voice rather than visuals, I must be especially intentional about tone, pacing, and clarity. If I use complex terms or research-based language, I need to slow down and explain those ideas in a way that does not feel overwhelming.

At the same time, I recognize that other stakeholders may listen. Professors, campus leaders, and even community members could hear the podcast. Their perspectives shape how I approach the structure and depth of my content. I need to clearly explain the reasoning behind the workshop, the ideas that support it, and the thought process behind our planning. In audio form, organization becomes even more important because listeners cannot reread a sentence if they miss something. This pushes me to carefully structure my points so they build logically and are easy to follow.

Most importantly, I think about the individuals who are directly impacted by the issue our workshop addresses. They are not just part of the audience—they are the reason the conversation exists. That awareness influences my word choice and the level of care I bring to the discussion. My goal is not simply to promote an event, but to contribute to understanding and encourage meaningful reflection.

Sam Lee

For my EMPLACE contribution, I’m creating a social media campaign to promote Jasmine’s on-campus workshop. Everyone in my group is working on their own part of the overall plan, but I’m the only one focusing on the social media side. Because of that, I have to think carefully about who I actually want this campaign to reach and how it’s going to make an impact. Social media can either be really effective or completely ignored, so I don’t want to just post something basic and hope for the best.

The main audience I want to reach is young adults on campus. They are the ones most likely to attend the workshop, so if they don’t see the posts or don’t feel interested, the event won’t be successful. That means the content has to be engaging and relatable, not just informational. I have to think about what would actually make someone stop scrolling and pay attention. It also needs to be clear about why the workshop matters and why someone should take time out of their day to attend.

I also want professors to see the campaign. Professors have influence and can encourage students to go, mention it in class, or even connect the workshop to what they’re teaching. If they see value in it, that gives the event more credibility. In addition, I think about investors or potential sponsors. Even if funding isn’t the focus right now, presenting the campaign in a professional and organized way shows that this workshop has real purpose and potential to grow. The way I design and promote it reflects on the entire group and the seriousness of the project.

Most importantly, I want the campaign to reach the people who are directly affected by the issue the workshop focuses on. They are the reason this workshop exists. Keeping them in mind reminds me that this isn’t just about getting attention online, but about spreading awareness and encouraging meaningful conversation. Since I’m responsible for the social media portion, I feel more pressure to make sure it actually works. It pushes me to balance creativity with strategy and think beyond just completing my assignment. Overall, considering these different audiences makes me more intentional about how I approach my work and the impact it can have.

Who do you want your work to reach? Who are the relevant stakeholders, and how do/should they shape your work?

I would like for my work to reach not just young adults ages eighteen to twenty-five but to anyone who is willing to understand and learn more about water conservation. These stakeholders should shape my work by making me pay close attention to the formatting and the words used to describe the methods I took in collecting data as well as what the data means and being sure to elaborate deeply on certain terms that may be unfamiliar to them such as “codes” and “dissemination.” Water conservation is not an issue that affects only one generation or one community. It is a practice that has influence in many fields and areas of life such as households, businesses, farmers, policymakers, and future populations. Because of that, my work should be understandable and meaningful to a broad range of readers, not just people who are already familiar with technical research language.

My primary target audience are a particularly significant audience because they are at a stage in life where habits, beliefs, and civic awareness are still developing. Many people in this age range are beginning to live independently and begin to pay utility bills and learn more about the importance of how they use resources. If my work can help them better understand why conservation matters and what practical steps they can take, then it has the potential to create long-term impact. At the same time, I am aware that there are others who would also benefit from learning how to make more informed decisions about water use. Homeowners, community leaders, educators, and local governments are also stakeholders, and they may rely on clear information in order to design policies or change behaviors.

Because my audience is so broad, these stakeholders should strongly shape how I present my work. They push me to pay close attention to my formatting, word choice, and explanations. Academic writing can easily become filled with specialized vocabulary that makes sense to researchers but confuses general readers. For example, terms like “codes” or “dissemination” may be common in research environments, yet they might be unfamiliar to someone outside of that context. If I use words like these, it is my responsibility to slow down and explain what they mean, why they are important, and how they relate to the results I am presenting.

Announcements : Week of Feb 23rd – We need to find a time we are all available this week to meet with ANNA of Heartlands- Have projects and updated information to share with her – Meeting only has to be 20 minutes on Teams 

• Everyone put availability 

 Emplace Plan 

What is our research story ? 

• Our research story deals with connecting young adults ages 18-25 with the resources to be able to participate in different types of conservation
• Our research story helps get a better understanding on why young adults don’t participate in conservation

What did we achieve ? 

• Surveys, presentations, brochures, podcast, and interviews
• Creating my first vlog episode for my podcast project. – Isaiah
• Previous research ( named above) 
•  Connecting with peers & professors
• Creating a content based video to engage young adults on water conservation used sources like social media – Laylah

What do we want to achieve ? 

• Getting young adults engaged in conservation
• Connecting Heartlands with young adults at SIUE – Jaiden
• Want to create a social media campaign- Sam 
• Boost Jasmine’s campaign with social media- Sam 
• Create a cohesive blog post on emplace featuring all of our different projects and how they blend into one another in conclusion but also stand out as individual units and how those units uniquely contribute to the overall final product. – Isaiah
• Creating events to engage young adults and present and spread knowledge about 
• conservation to young adults – Jasmine 
• Creating a brochure to pass around campus -zuleyri
• Using social media, which is a source that most young adults get their information from and produce and video that’ll grab their attention but also keeping it informative- Laylah
• Spreading information about volunteer opportunities and the importance of conservation efforts among young adults. – Ayiana

What does our research mean to a broader audience? 

• Our research serves to provide multiple methods of both educating people on and reducing the stigma surrounding water conservation and practices surrounding the topic. This helps to better promote engagement of our target audience (young adults) in participating in water conservation which is the main goal of all of our research/projects. – Isaiah

Dissemination Plan – Put Names by sections & DUE February 8th 11:59pm 

What is the purpose? 

• The center purpose of our project is to understand why young adults aren’t engaging in conservation activities and what we can do to help young adults engage in conservation activities. -Zuleyri
• The goal of this project is to determine how to encourage young adults to engage in water conservation efforts in their community – Jaiden
• The purpose of our project is to distribute products that will help young adults become more engaged in conservation. – Ayiana
• The purpose of this project is to work together to fabricate a cohesive and encapsulating display of knowledge over how to get young adults better engaged accompanied by our research that will back it up in a clear and easy-to-comprehend way. – Isaiah
• Our overall purpose of this project was to find ways to get young adults engaged in water conservation and make sure these practices could be used everyday and could be impactful. -Laylah
• The central purpose of our research is to ensure that young adults have the access to information and actions to be able to participate in conservation as they grow into adulthood. We want to be the group to encourage young adults to a path in life that will help them in the long run. -Jasmine 

Who is this project made for?

• This project was made for young adults targeted at 18-25 years old who weren’t/aren’t as educated about water conservation. Also people who need to know more about water conservation and need navigation on where to start. -Laylah 
• Our project is for both our community partner, Heartlands Conservancy, and for young adults in our communities – Jaiden
• Our community partner Heartlands Conservancy -Zuleyri
• Young Adults 
• This project is made for young adults, who is our target audience, as well as Heartlands Conservancy, who is our community partner. – Ayiana
• This project is made for young adults who possess some interest in but hold little to no experience learning about or dealing firsthand with topics related to water conservation or such practices that fall under that umbrella. – Isaiah
• This project is made for young adults here at SIUE and locally ages 18 -25 who don’t have the knowledge , access, resources or motivation for conservation. – Jasmine 

Why is it important?

• Our group project is important because it provides multiple methods of educating people on and reducing the stigma surrounding water conservation. This is crucial to achieving our goal in facilitating the increase of interest or the decrease of factors that lead to non-engagement amid our target population, being young adults ages 18-25. – Isaiah
• This project is important because it can educate young adults on how to contribute to solving problems in their communities. A lot of us are taught about the negative impact of issues such as pollution or contaminated water on our planet, but we are rarely taught what exactly to do about these problems in order to reverse the effects – Jaiden
• The reason why this project is important is because conservation is an important practice that needs to be shared, and there are lots of people who want to be engaged, but just don’t know how to. So, this project will help to bridge that gap between their knowledge and actions. – Ayiana
• Focusing on finding ways to get young adults engaged in water conservation and figuring out those stakeholders is important because young adults have the capability to make a change in society. If we can figure out ways to get them engaged, we can help them build long-term impacts into the environment. -Laylah 
• This social media campaign is important because it helps reach the young adults where they already spend a lot of time and attention. It spreads conservation quickly and in a format that is easy to understand and share. This campaign can create interaction and community by letting people respond, ask questions, and share their own actions. Overall, it turns conservation outreach into something visible, social, and repeatable rather than limited to a single event. – Sam Lee
• Our project is important to allow students access to information , correct habits , and motivation for the future towards conservation that will help them be able to benefit their environment. It is also important for us to provide them with different opportunities to educate on something they may not have thought about. – Jasmine 

What ethical considerations?

• One concern in this project is encouraging young adults to participate in community activities while ensuring that they are willing to help out. We do not want to pressure young adults into thinking that they have to be active in their communities, this should be about volunteering – Jaiden
• Background (such as where a person grew up or how they grew up) etc. -zuleyri
• The ethical considerations are about making sure my posts are honest, respectful, safe, and fair to my audience and partners. I will only share information that is correct and supported. Motivating people ethically is the goal of this project. – Sam Lee 
• The ethical considerations that are important to think about is how our plans will affect the community. We need to make sure we are aware of our actions, behavior, and anything else that can possibly cause unethical conclusions towards the community. – Ayiana
• An ethical consideration of mine is always making sure to inform the people I am interviewing that my podcast project will be publicly broadcasted and only to share information they feel comfortable with. – Isaiah 
• One ethical consideration that I have for this project is to provide a non-pressure inducing environment that facilitates a space of open communication. -Laylah
• One ethical consideration I have for this project is presenting my information and research in a way that is helpful and welcoming and not pressuring. I would not like for my audience to feel any way towards outcomes I have created for them. – Jasmine 

What working practices will you adapt? 

• Since my campaign is about young adult conservation and social media   like the codes and Heartlands project, the best working practices are the ones that keep my content consistent, interactive, and easy to manage within a group. I am going to tie my post to real activities like Jasmine’s event. – Sam Lee
• I am producing a brochure that will allow me to obtain practices such as creating a flyer, distributing it on campus, and informing others. -zuleyri
• The working practices that I will adopt in order to be ready for distribution is to become more organized where I write down my actions and plans in order to stay on top of what I need to do and when it needs to be done. – Ayiana
• I will be using a brochure to display Heartlands to professors at SIUE and a list of professors to show Heartlands who they would most likely benefit from a collaboration with. So it will be important for me to learn to display Heartlands and the professors in a way that is positive, yet truthful. – Jaiden
• Some working practices that I could include in my contribution towards our project is to make sure that the video I create connects to our problem at hand and also making sure that the video is informational so that we can get our problem across but also making it very engaging which is our whole point of our project. Overall, keeping the audience’s attention. – Laylah
• I will ensure that I have a schedule in place to make sure that I complete my project in a timely to conduct all the interviews and still have enough time transcribe and code them.
• Working practices I will adapt will be organizing events with a purpose, communicating with community partners effectively for collaboration, and listening to student feedback. -Jasmine  

How are you going to revise your work? What secondary sources might you need to explore to bolster your previous research? Who are you writing for and how will that impact your revisions?

This project will be revised through a process that combines qualitative analysis, audience awareness, and engagement-focused refinement. My initial research has been centered around a podcast project designed to engage young adults in conversations about water conservation. After recording my first full episode I used a software called “Descript” to transcribe the audio and systematically coded the transcripts from there. These codes were then grouped into themes that revealed how my target audience understands, values, or resists water conservation. Revision will focus on tightening the connection between these themes and the conclusions I draw from them, ensuring that my insights are clearly supported by the data rather than assumptions.

One major way I plan to revise my work is by revisiting my coding process. As I review transcripts multiple times, I may refine or collapse codes that are redundant, unclear, or too broad. This will help strengthen the validity of my themes and allow me to develop clearer metrics that accurately represent audience attitudes and behaviors. Additionally, feedback from my team will play a critical role in revision. Since the findings will be disseminated collaboratively on the Emplace website, team discussions will help identify gaps in interpretation, unclear explanations, or opportunities to present the findings in a more engaging and accessible way.

To bolster my research, I will explore several types of secondary sources. Scholarly articles on environmental communication and behavior change will help contextualize my findings within existing research on sustainability engagement. Studies on water conservation messaging—especially those focused on young adults or digital media—will help me compare my audience’s responses with broader trends. I also plan to consult sources related to qualitative research methods, particularly coding and thematic analysis, to ensure my methodology aligns with established best practices. In addition, reports from environmental organizations and government agencies on water usage patterns and conservation challenges will provide real-world context that strengthens the relevance of my conclusions.

My primary audience consists of young adults, particularly those who may not already see water conservation as a personal or urgent issue. This audience shapes how I revise both the content and presentation of my work. Because young adults often respond better to relatable language, storytelling, and practical takeaways, my revisions will prioritize clarity, accessibility, and engagement over overly technical language. At the same time, a secondary audience includes educators, researchers, and community partners who may use the findings for outreach or program development. This means my revisions must balance approachability with credibility, clearly explaining my methods and findings without oversimplifying them.