Two Hawaiʻi students were recently named finalists in NPR’s 2023 Student Podcast Challenge. Emma Forges and Brynna Colmenares will be eighth graders at Highlands Intermediate School in Pearl City in the fall.
Their podcast looked at the Hawaiʻi Innocence Project. They told the story of former inmate Albert "Ian" Schweitzer, who was freed this past January after nearly 25 years in prison.
"I wanted to do it because it was really interesting," Forges said. "We heard about Ian Schweitzer being free from the news. And then we just wanted to do a story about that."
Forges and Colmenares were the only finalists from Hawaiʻi among a field of students from 12 other middle schools in big cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.
They told The Conversation's Russell Subiono that they're not regular podcast listeners, and they weren't even aware of NPR or HPR prior to the challenge.
In fact, they said they found out about it from seventh grade social studies teacher Kelli Kajiwara, who encouraged them to enter.
Although they did not end up winning, both students said the podcast challenge encouraged them to learn in a different way.
"I think it's very creative," Colmenares said. "And it was very fun."
Listen to their podcast here.
This interview aired on The Conversation on July 13, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
