In this week's episode of The Students' Podcast we talk with some of our high school finalists from last year who mastered the art of the respectful interview. Three students from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts created a non-narrated podcast about the human stories behind the gun violence epidemic in their hometown of Washington, DC. Interviewing family and friends, the students let the interviewees speak for themselves with little editing ..read more

Ever wonder if that local legend has some truth to it? At the Student Podcast Challenge we love to hear a good mystery, so pull out your magnifying glasses and start investigating! We talk with last year's finalist Daniel Wang about his 4 month investigation into a hometown history. He gives advice all about how he made his entry "How A Small Town Discovered The Universe ..read more

Soundproofing and studios and microphones, oh my! When you listen to a professional podcast you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to that kind of recording set up, but the thing is ... you don't need it. This week on The Students' Podcast we talked to Aaron and Alex Morgan about how they made their podcast sound so good. Their entry "Why Instagram Is Like A Cocaine-Laced Brownie" was one of our finalists last year and had some of the best production in the competition ..read more

For this week's episode of The Students' Podcast we check in with maybe the most qualified person to discuss winning the Student Podcast Challenge ... last year's college champion, Anya Steinberg! Anya's podcast He's Just 23 Chromosomes blew the judges away with masterful storytelling, layered sound and humor. She was a natural choice to be our first ever guest co-host on the podcast! We talk tips and tricks, hacks for recording from home and techniques to telling a personal story ..read more

Are you ever SO excited to tell your friends a story that you kind of jumble the whole thing up? Like the substance is there, but if the delivery is off it just doesn't LAND as well. The same thing goes for podcasting. Even if we can hear in your voice that you're excited about something, if there's no structure or narrative to the piece it can be hard to hook an audience. This week on The Students' Podcast, we're revisiting an episode from last season where we talk to some of our high school finalists who managed to tell their story really well ..read more

You wouldn't play an instrument without practicing scales and you wouldn't play a basketball game without stretching – so why would you record a podcast without warming up your voice? NPR vocal coach Jessica Hansen has stretches, breathing exercises and vocal drills you can do to make sure that you sound natural when you press record ..read more

It's almost time for year FOUR of the Student Podcast Challenge. To celebrate we talked to some teachers who have been with us since the beginning ..read more

This week on The Students' Podcast, Elissa Nadworny, Lauren Migaki and Sequoia Carrillo run through some early entries they love. From interviewing kids about COVID, to high energy sports commentary, to marriage?? There's a lot to talk about ..read more

In so many ways, music is emotion. Studies of the brain tell us that our minds react in different ways to the sound of music. So it's only natural that you'll want to take all that musical magic and sprinkle it over your podcast. Well, not so fast. Music — and composing it — can get really complicated, especially if you're going to enter NPR's Student Podcast Challenge. So, here's our guide to helping you put great music into your podcast, so that when you sit down at the keyboard to create that magic, you'll know the very specific rules that limit what you can and can't do ..read more

*Car door shuts, ignition revs, wheels turn on the pavement* Sound effects that transport you to a specific place are bread and butter for podcasts. But when does adding sound effects move a story along, and when do they merely confuse the listener? To explore this, we touched base with one of last year's Student Podcast Challenge finalists, Alex Soto. Her podcast, What Is The Most Beautiful Sound?, utilized over 10 sound effects. In the wrong hands, this could have been a hot mess, but in Alex's podcast, it totally worked. This week on The Students' Podcast, hear how Alex struck a balance b ..read more