The mission behind the Institute for Integrative and Innovative Research, or I³R, at the University of Arkansas is to find solutions to problems by bridging different disciplines, people and skills. This sort of convergence was on full display last week, when 30 14- to 16-year-olds spent the day at I³R.
“It doesn't have to address the whole problem. We are not expecting anyone here to solve the problem completely today, but we want you guys to use your mixed backgrounds.”
That's Caroline Wahlgreen, education and empowerment coordinator at I³R, speaking to the students after they'd all spent about 45 minutes in orientation sessions. The students had been divided into groups, each group given a challenge. By the end of the day, each group would have a presentation ready addressing some of the group's specific matter of concern. The day came together with support from Cox Communications. Olin Ericksen, public affairs manager for Cox operations in Arkansas, says it made sense for Cox to embrace this kind of exercise at I³R.
“Couple of our major pillars for support in the community is a youth education technology, and today really hits the mark on all three of those initiatives. And so these kids, really young adults, coming together and finding ways to address larger concerns through technology, using I³R as kind of an incubator for that. We just felt like it was a perfect fit for what Cox does every day in the community.”
Ericksen says about two years ago, Cox supported a grant revolving around telehealth access.
“So today's focus on telehealth and maternal health. They're tackling a lot of the same issues that we care deeply about at Cox as well.”
Caroline Wahlgreen, the education and empowerment coordinator at I³R and a coordinator of this day at the building, says the idea is not for each group to solve the challenge of, say, tobacco use among teens, but to begin discussions about what might be first steps to addressing a challenge.
Wahlgreen: They're broken into three groups. They are talking about maternal health and maternal health outcomes in Arkansas. They're talking about the use of extended reality and augmented reality in medical use settings, especially in rural settings, which is really applicable to Arkansas. And the third one is actually the use of tobacco in youth populations. So we started this morning with like a 15- to 20-minute seminar with a subject matter expert. The kids got to hear about the problem, hear about the research that has already been done, and what we're hoping that they facilitate this afternoon and this morning is conversations around a product or a campaign that might be able to address some piece of that problem. That would work for the community that it applies to, and that may be their community. It may be a more rural community, but pretty much every student here probably has some connection to one of these issues.
Kellams: That's a wide spectrum, tobacco, AR, VR and maternal health. That's on purpose.
Wahlgreen: Yes, that's on purpose. The institute's founding mission, actually, is to bring together people from different backgrounds to solve really complex and big societal issues. So that looks like things like maternal health, which don't require just one type of expert or one group of people. Really, we wanted to focus on bringing together, these students are from all different schools. They're from different backgrounds. Some of them are not from Arkansas.
And so we wanted to bring together a diverse group of people to mirror what the institute does, to show them that solving complex societal problems requires people from a wide range of backgrounds with a wide range of voices to try to tackle some piece of a bigger problem, which I think is being seen a lot in news and media around these issues today. It requires not only funding, but it requires subject matter experts, it requires the thinkers and the doers. So we're hoping that showing these students what that looks like in a real world setting, they might also get a better idea for what careers exist in research. It's not just being a doctor or an astronaut. It can also be a researcher, whether that be in private industry or in a university setting.
Kellams: When you were speaking to this group just a moment ago, you said, imagine you're real researchers, because today you are real researchers. Part of this is showing them how research begins?
Wahlgreen: Yes. And I hope that today's workshop also shows them how to identify a problem that can be solved or tackled. There are a lot of issues or problems in our world. There's obviously, these kids, I think more than previous generations are exposed to a constant news cycle. They all came in with a phone today. They're all aware of the headlines no matter what platform they're getting them from. So part of what we do at the institute is identifying issues that maybe it is feasible to solve some piece of it.
And I think when you get other voices at the table and other people in your lab or in your focus group, you really start to believe more in the impact you can make. When you see that when people come together, you can come up with a solution that works for that population, it feels like the solution is a little bit more in reach. And we want to teach students that. We want to teach students the value of having different people at your table, and getting to be exposed to people from different school districts. Or some of these kids were homeschooled previously, and they're kind of coming into the school system, so they would have a completely different set of lived experiences. And we want to show students that you can be a researcher in any career, really. And all of the projects that the institute now started with someone saying this is a problem either in my community or it's a problem in this community. And we want to take steps towards making a difference rather than just identifying the problem.
Kellams: I'm thinking back to when I was 16 or 17. If I had been presented certainly maternal health challenges, I would have felt, well, hell, I feel overwhelmed now, much older. So how did you and the other organizers think about, let's give them something that they can begin to brainstorm about that doesn't just, from the start, shut them down?
Wahlgreen: Yeah, no, that's a good question. And I do think that when my supervisor and I were talking about it, I am actually comfortable with a small level of them not knowing. I think that there's a lot of resilience involved in being able to say, gosh, I don't know how I myself would tackle this problem, which is why they're in groups. And I think, again, going back to the value of having other voices at the table, if one person doesn't feel equipped or doesn't feel like they know how to approach it, there's a possibility someone else might. And I think when I was thinking through planning today's workshop, we wanted to start with the information. That's the way my brain works.
We introduce them to the institute this morning. They had some breakfast, all that fun stuff. But then we gave them 15 or 20 minutes with the subject matter expert, and we encouraged them to ask hard questions. And we encouraged the seminar facilitators to ask the students hard questions. I'm sure at the beginning of those seminars was quiet and awkward, but at the end, we got to talk to the facilitators, and they did say there was some talking and some movement and some questions. So I think when you start with the information and the facts and you can talk to a subject matter expert, it makes it a little bit easier to say, okay, here's what's already been done. What is something I know of? And we give them some examples. We gave them a one pager that has some prompts for maybe consider an app, consider something you already have like an Apple Watch. What's something you might use your Apple Watch for that you hadn't thought about before? So it's not necessarily encouraging them to create solutions from the ground up, but it's, here's the information, here's what's being done. What do you think is a good jumping off point from that? And if you don't know, maybe look to the person to your left or your right, and they might have a totally new idea that gets your brain going.
Kellams: Were you in one of the informational seminars this morning?
Wahlgreen: I have actually seen them all many times through our other programming, so I did not have a chance to attend them, but I probably could at least know enough to be dangerous about them. We did a really highly interactive presentation on the youth tobacco recently to a group of much younger students. So that looked totally different. That was a little less structured. It was more hands on. We did like a bubble demo to demonstrate like membrane permeability. And that was given by the same facilitators who today gave a little bit more of a polished, structured presentation, that we're hoping shows these 14- to 16-year-olds that this isn't just a workshop to try to mimic a class or a class presentation. We really want them to think outside the box, and we want them to come into an unfamiliar space, maybe be a little vulnerable with the people at their table. It is a little awkward. It is hard to put yourself out there, but it creates resilience to challenge students to do that. So parts of the agenda, when my supervisor and I were discussing it, they were a little uncomfortable. There is some gray area, but that is life, and that is any career these students are going to choose someday, or any life path they're going to take someday, has a little bit of that gray area and that unsureness. I think being able to build that resilience in these students, to know that at the end of the day, you can still come up with something tangible. It may not solve the whole problem, but you are building that muscle of, I can trust myself and I can build on what I know, and I can also rely on what people around me know as well.
We have a beautiful facility, and we hope to continue this educational programming. We want students to come in of all ages. We want lifelong learners to come in. We want younger students to come in. And we've really been building that muscle the last year or so. And so, in closing, I hope that if someone's listening to this and thinks of an educational program or thinks this workshop sounds really exciting, reach out to us, get in touch. And it is like my favorite job I've ever had, and I feel very, very lucky to get to give back to the next generation. I'm extremely passionate about educating people because my own scientific journey started with one teacher who was really passionate about the material, and that set off the trajectory of the rest of my life. So if we can be a demonstration to students that careers in STEM look like a lot of things, but more than that, to rely on themselves and to dig into their community and get plugged in, and they're going to solve a lot more problems than they know they will.
Caroline Wahlgreen is education and empowerment coordinator at the Institute for Integrative and Innovative Research, or I³R, at the University of Arkansas. Our conversation took place at I³R on Friday.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
