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Transcript
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The pandemic drastically changed what outdoor school looked like in 2020 however one positive of this is that it allowed outdoor school providers and sites to focus in on equity work in their programming the oregon state university extension service outdoor school program created two grants one of which we'll be talking about the equity diversity and inclusion grant which allowed outdoor school providers to look at equity in their programming curriculum and staff training we were High School Leadership Institute very excited about the opportunity to apply for the grant through osu extension because during the pandemic we recognized the need to engage with our high school students because we were unable to work with them during the 2021 school year through this grant we developed a high school leadership institute to connect high school students with each other and career professionals while focusing the institute to center the voice of students and communities of color throughout the experience
A lot of what we did was re-learn how to to be a part of a community and um to build relationships with each other to see people who look similar to you and who look different than you and learn to build relationships through difference and through commonalities so that they can learn to meet people where they're at we push them to look in and talk about their identity and how it affects the world around them the summer leadership institute was a program for them to be leaders in their school communities Conclusion i was excited about the proposal submitted by mesd for our equity diversity and inclusion grants it was really innovative and recognized that for high school students to participate many of them work during the summer and their incomes are important to their families so they made this program free for all participants and they even found a way to remove some barriers so that there could be a stipend offered to every high schooler every every student was also eligible for pcc college credits this program was a great success and it reflects the commitment of osu extension service outdoor school program and the mesd outdoor school to equity diversity inclusion and to seeking to serve marginalized peoples and just elevating and uplifting all people in our community
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