Research & Practice
Teaching Traditional Diet and Environmental Justice to Urban Youth Participating in the Native Youth Enrichment Program’s Digital Storytelling Workshop
The mission at the University of Washington’s Indigenous Wellness Research Institute (IWRI) is to marshal community, tribal, academic, and governmental resources toward innovative, culture-centered interdisciplinary, collaborative social and behavioral research and education. Within IWRI, the Native Youth Enrichment Program (NYEP) is a culturally based program intended to promote Native youth in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
In 2011 NYEP ran two digital storytelling workshops. The first focused on “self-efficacy.” Students were asked to contemplate their self-identity – as a person, as a Native American, as a high school student looking toward their future. The second focused on both traditional and current Native diet, nutrition, and health outcomes. After attending the foundation-building workshops, each student created a three- to five-minute multimedia story based on information taught in the sessions. The purpose of the digital storytelling workshops was to provide nearly 40 middle and high school aged urban Native youth with an opportunity for personal reflection, development of technical and communication skills, creation of bonds within their local Native community, and knowledge about their heritage.
This project involved developing teaching a curriculum that would help students learn about the traditional Native diet, nutritional benefits of these foods, health outcomes that have resulted from the change in diet, revitalization of the traditional diet, and the relationship between food and the environment.
Materials Available
Project Type(s): MPH Practicum, PH Concentration Poster
Author(s): Dara Carlson
Program(s): Master of Public Health, RDN Training
Year: 2011
Adviser(s):