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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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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."

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.

What makes you want to keep listening to a podcast? Most often, a really good story. But even once you have a good story you have to make sure you tell it well. In podcasting, we're lucky enough to have a script to guide us. Last year's finalists from St. Helena, Calif. told us a really good story in their podcast "Popo the Clown," so we wanted to hear how they did it.

If you want your podcast to be filled with amazing voices and emotional stories, you've got to nail your interviews! In this episode, the students of the CV19 Podcast explain how they leveled up to become expert interviewers.

What makes a good interview? For starters, asking good questions! But there's so much more to it than asking who, what, where, when and why. On this episode, the art of the interview. We'll cover how to prepare for an interview and give tips for asking good questions and telling good stories.

Some people love emotional conversations, some people avoid them. But for journalists and podcasters, they're part of the job. Sometimes you have to interview people about their saddest moments. It's hard, but if you can tell the story well, it means a lot: to them, and to your audience. Every year some of our best entries in the Student Podcast Challenge are moving, emotional narratives. For this week's episode of The Students' Podcast, Elissa Nadworny talked with Samuel Meneses—one of last year's finalists— who told the story of a tragic kayaking accident in his podcast Life and Death in the Amazon.

Once you've finished the interview — there's still a lot of hard work ahead. Some questions work, some don't. Did the interview run too long? You'll have to cut it down. Remember, entries for the student podcast challenge must be eight minutes or less. So here are some great ideas for how to wade through ALL that audio. Today you'll learn how from Planet Money's Sarah Gonzalez how trim away all the extra stuff, and just leave the good parts in an episode from earlier this year.