ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
NPR's Student Podcast Challenge has brought the voices of fifth- through 12th-graders to our air. But every year, we get emails from teachers asking, what about fourth-graders? We thought podcasting might be too challenging for 9- and 10-year-olds. Well, though I hate to say it, NPR regrets the error. Our judges chose five winning podcasts. NPR's Janet Woojeong Lee introduces us to two of them.
JANET WOOJEONG LEE, BYLINE: There's no one right way to make a good podcast, but both of these winning entries told personal stories.
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UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #1: So imagine this - you're at a birthday party.
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UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: You're playing with your little sister, bouncing on the trampoline.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAMPOLINE SPRINGS CREAKING)
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #3: And then, in an instant, everything changes.
LEE: In Andrew Luria's broadcast extracurricular, students told the story of their friend Leeland Korman.
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UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #4: What do you remember about what happened to you that day?
LEELAND KORMAN: I was trying to double-bounce her, and then my head just slammed right into hers.
LEE: It turns out that slam had caused a massive head injury that would send Leeland into the hospital for months.
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UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: This is "Bouncing Back," a podcast from fourth-graders at Magnolia Elementary School in Carlsbad, Calif. - a story that takes us from trampoline to triumph.
LEE: The kids brought the story to life through natural sound, like the trampoline springs...
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LEE: ...And through interviews.
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UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #5: Here's Leeland's mom, Maggie.
MAGGIE HAVENSEK: It was really scary. I didn't know if Leeland was going to survive.
LEE: They documented the time that Leeland spent in the hospital recuperating...
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UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #6: Leeland was in the hospital for five months, but he wasn't alone. His parents and his sister were right there beside him.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #7: His classmates came to visit.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Hi, Leeland.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #8: We're all missing you.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #9: We hope you come back soon.
LEE: ...And told the story of how the community came together to support him - his teacher, who visited several times a week, people who ran a race in his honor. Leeland's classmates interviewed him when he returned to school.
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LEELAND: I just feel awesome. Like, I just love to be at school, like, and see all my friends.
LEE: And just like it took a big community to support Leeland, it was a big group who put together this winning podcast. I'll let our narrator take this one.
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LUCY LURIA: Kenley Taylor, Remy Gunn, Molly Ward, Sadie Boyle, Henry Snyder, Quinn David, Vivi Oziel, Olivia Christensen, Sophie Weenig and Itzel Mas. I'm Lucy Luria.
LEE: In San Jose, Calif., fourth-grader Ameya Desai was also thinking about communities and those who have been torn from them.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "FAR FROM HOME - A STORY OF FORCED MIGRATION")
AMEYA DESAI: My grandfather, Kishor (ph) Desai, was forced to leave his birthplace, Uganda, in the 1970s, along other Indians under the command of the brutal dictator General Idi Amin.
LEE: In her podcast, "Far From Home," she tells his story. He was born in Uganda, his parents had migrated from India, and his father worked at a sugarcane factory. Ameya interviewed her grandfather about his childhood outside of Kampala.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "FAR FROM HOME - A STORY OF FORCED MIGRATION")
KISHOR DESAI: Sugarcane fields stretched for miles all around. We used to play a lot of sports by the side of sugarcane fields. And any time one was hungry or thirsty, we just broke a sugarcane and chewed on it for instant sugar rush.
LEE: But by the time her grandfather was at university, things in Uganda had changed. The country's leader, Idi Amin, ordered the expulsion of Asians from the country.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "FAR FROM HOME - A STORY OF FORCED MIGRATION")
AMEYA: Idi Amin gave the Indians 90 days to leave Uganda. My grandfather's life changed forever.
DESAI: I was in shock and disbelief. My family was dispersed all over the world. We were never a single family unit again.
LEE: Her grandfather spent the next several years completing his studies but was stateless. Eventually, he made his way to the United States.
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DESAI: I had to start all over again because U.S. did not recognize my credentials. I worked my way stocking grocery shelves, which was very humbling and hard.
LEE: Ameya Desai says, she was inspired to speak to her grandfather and make this podcast to share the stories of communities that are often left out in history classes.
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AMEYA: My friends and I want to be that generation that keeps talking about the stories of displacement, like my grandfather's, that don't get told often enough. I think when we share the pain and suffering of our history, we can ensure it doesn't happen to others.
LEE: Janet Woojeong Lee, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF NAS SONG, "I CAN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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