Share Your Stories Around Water

Exploring connections and changes to Wyoming's water through storytelling

The University of Wyoming, in partnership with the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources, is conducting storytelling interviews to explore the lived experience of Wyoming farmers, ranchers, and recreationists in the Snake and Green River watersheds and their relationships to water. The objective is to better understand how changing water availability impacts Wyoming residents and to build their adaptive capacity to respond to these changes. 

Storytelling was chosen as the best way to build an undistorted picture of the perceptions and values behind people's connection to water. It offers a chance to hear from people directly about how history, culture, and other values have shaped their relationships to water, and about any changes they may be noticing. By telling and sharing these stories, participants will have a chance to reflect, make meaning, share knowledge, and activate memory, actions which have been correlated with increased ability to adapt to changes.

At the end of the research, and with storyteller consent, stories will be shared via a Story Map, a tool that combines location data with photos, text, and audio to visualize information across a landscape. The Story Map will be emailed directly to participants and publicly available online. The research team will also produce and share a one page summary of findings with any interested participants.

How it works 

1. Fill out the "expression of interest" form and select your preference for an in-person, over-the-phone, or online interview. Interviews can last twenty minutes to an hour.
2. We will email you to set up an interview according to your preference, to share story prompts ahead of time, and to request that you share a relevant photo or two that we can ask about in the interview. 
3. During the interview, we will use the prompts and photos to ask about your relationship to water. You can choose which prompts you'd like to answer.
4. On completion of the interview, we will mail you $25 gift card.
5. Your answers are confidential and will be shared only if you give permission. You have the right to withdraw your consent to be interviewed at any times and without having to give reasons.
6. We will compile all publicly shareable stories into a Story Map. A Story Map is a graphical tool that combines geospatial data with photos, text, and audio to visualize information, making it accessible and interactive to the public. (See an example Story Map here)
7. The Story Map will be shared with participants via email. Stories will also be published on the Ruckelshaus Institute, EPSCoR, and Climate Stories Project websites. 
8. We will draw the winner of the $250 gift certificate, announce the winner to all participants, and mail out the certificate.
9. When the research is complete, we will share a one page factsheet that summarizes our findings.   

View and listen to example stories on the Climate Stories Project website >

This research, led by graduate student and research assistant Pallavi Pokharel, is one component of the Wyoming Anticipating Climate Transitions (WyACT) Project, a five-year program funded by the National Science Foundation.

WyACT facilitates the co-production of knowledge to enable cutting edge science that helps Wyoming communities anticipate and adapt to climate change impacts on water.