Dozens of aspiring educators in Colorado are taking an unusual path to earn their teacher certificates.  

They’re doing apprenticeships in public schools as part of a state program that offers an alternative path to gaining a teacher’s license and bachelor’s degree. Proponents see the program as a partial solution to Colorado’s teacher shortage, which resulted in thousands of unfilled classroom positions last school year. 

Teachers’ apprentices spend about four years getting experience in the classroom while taking courses on the side through Colorado Mountain College. It’s a different model from more traditional bachelor’s degrees that require years of coursework before setting foot in the classroom.    

Advocates say it opens doors for those who find the traditional college route to becoming a teacher prohibitive due to lack of time and money.  

Erica Breunlin is a reporter with the Colorado Sun. She spoke with Erin O’Toole about how the program works and what it promises for teachers and students in Colorado. Read Erica’s recent story on the program.

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Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

When we shop for food, the labels on our groceries give us guideposts, such as how much fiber, protein or fat is in that loaf of bread or jar of peanut butter.   

But more than a decade after Colorado legalized recreational cannabis, the potency labeling on products at your local marijuana dispensary may be far less helpful – and less reliable. 

A new study from the University of Colorado Boulder found that almost half of cannabis flower products sold at dispensaries across the state are inaccurately labeled. Researchers found that flower products often contain less – or more – of compounds like THC and CBD than indicated on the label.  

The findings raise questions about quality control within cannabis companies, as well as how much consumers should trust these labels, especially when they buy higher-potency marijuana. The results of the study were published earlier this month in the journal Scientific Reports. 

Erin O’Toole spoke with one of the CU researchers, Jonny Lisano, to learn more about the study and what it means for consumer trust. 

For more cannabis coverage, check out In The NoCo’s recent conversations that explored how long-term marijuana use might impact memory and a study of cannabis’ potential as a treatment for cancer and its symptoms.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

The red admiral. The black swallowtail. And the beautiful, bright orange monarch.  

Each year a network of volunteers fans out across Colorado to see how many of these, and other butterfly species, they can find. Those observations help scientists understand the health of the state’s butterfly population.  

Our guest today says that work is vital because butterflies are sensitive to changes in climate and habitat. And butterflies across the U.S. appear to be declining. That’s according to a recent study in the journal Science that incorporated some alarming data from the Colorado volunteers. 

Shiran Hershcovich oversees the network of butterfly observers. It’s part of her job managing conservation projects for the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster. The program has trained more than 300 citizen butterfly observers since its launch in 2013. 

Shiran joined Erin O’Toole to talk about the network, and what its findings can tell us. 

Learn more about the butterfly monitoring network and its trainings for people interested in becoming volunteer butterfly observers.

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

 
Since 1960, the National Repertory Orchestra has brought talented college-aged musicians to Colorado to practice the art of playing in an ensemble.  

Each season, about 80 young musicians are selected to join the NRO in Breckenridge. They spend eight weeks rehearsing and performing in Summit County. Many of them go on to pursue careers in professional orchestras across the country.  

 
To get a glimpse behind the scenes at this unusual – and influential – summer orchestra, Erin O’Toole spoke with Michael Stern, their music director and conductor. He shared what makes a summer in the National Repertory Orchestra a formative experience. 

Performances for the NRO’s 2025 season run through Aug. 9. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

A few weeks back, a pair of hikers found themselves stranded on a cliff atop Quandary Peak – 14,000 feet in elevation – in cold temperatures. A rescue crew had to respond by helicopter and lift them off the mountain.    

It was one of 10 helicopter hoists that Colorado search and rescue crews performed this year through the end of June. That’s a record number. These dangerous maneuvers require helicopters to get close enough to rocky peaks to lower a rope and harness to people in trouble.  

And the rescue on Quandary Peak wasn’t even the most dramatic. Another recent rescue helped climbers who were struck by lightning and also set the record for Colorado’s highest-altitude hoist. 

Ryan Spencer, a reporter for the Summit Daily News, wrote about this spike in helicopter hoists. He told Erin O’Toole that it’s not clear why this increase in helicopter rescues is happening – but the stories about them are harrowing.   

Correction: An earlier version of this episode gave the incorrect number of helicopter hoists performed in Colorado this year through June. The correct number is 10. 

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

The U.S. Senate this week will likely vote on whether to rescind about $1.1 billion earmarked to support the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the next two years. That money ultimately funds local stations like KUNC and The Colorado Sound, along with NPR and PBS.  

The GOP-controlled House of Representatives has already voted to kill the funding. President Trump has backed the cuts and threatened to pull his support from any Republicans who oppose them. Republicans occupy 53 out of 100 seats in the Senate.  
 
Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, spoke with Erin O’Toole Tuesday morning about why he supports continued federal funding for public broadcasting at a moment when Republicans want to end it.  

By the way: If you’re curious how these cuts would affect KUNC News, we talked about it recently with Michael Arnold, the chief content and audience officer for KUNC and The Colorado Sound.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

In October 2009, Colorado and the nation held its breath as we waited to learn the fate of a 6-year-old who was thought to be stuck inside a silver balloon floating across Northern Colorado.  

The Heene family was living in Fort Collins in 2009 when they made a giant helium filled balloon shaped like a saucer. They called police one afternoon to say they’d lost control of the balloon and that it had floated thousands of feet into the sky with their youngest son, Falcon, inside. Police and reporters scrambled to respond.  

But the story broadcast on people’s TV screens quickly changed. First, it turned out Falcon had been at home in the attic the whole time. Then, people began questioning whether the whole thing had been a hoax.   

The story – and its strange aftermath – is the subject of “Balloon Boy,” a new documentary episode of Netflix’s series Trainwreck. It comes out Tuesday. 

We talked to the director of the documentary – Gillian Pachter about why she wanted to revisit this story. 

If you like documentaries, check out In The NoCo’s recent conversations about films that explored a solar housing project championed by former President Jimmy Carter and an athlete who used extreme running to work through his mental health struggles.

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

For a lot of people, July and early August in Steamboat Springs is all about tubing on the Yampa River.  

People rent a tube in downtown Steamboat, hop into the river just a few steps away and float past wildlife and hot springs. Some days, tourists in brightly colored tubes stretch from one side of the river to the other. 

But it’s very likely commercial tubing season on the Yampa will be alarmingly short this year. The Steamboat Pilot reports that city officials may close the river to tubing as soon as next week because of warm temperatures and low water flows. 

To learn more about why this is happening, Erin O’Toole spoke with John Chalstrom, a writer and editor with the Steamboat Pilot and the Craig Press – who also happens to spend a lot of time on the Yampa River as a fly-fishing guide. 

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

A warmer, drier future for Colorado has many people wondering about their lawns. Drought and heat turn lawns brown or kills them altogether. 

How can we sustain a lawn with less water and less mowing? And should we keep them at all? 

Tony Koski is a professor of horticulture and landscape architecture at Colorado State University. He teaches a class on growing a lawn that's resilient in the face of climate change.  

Tony talked with Erin O’Toole about how to create a lawn that will thrive in a hotter, drier climate. He is especially enthusiastic about one type of grass – called Bermuda grass – that he says is well equipped to survive in Colorado’s changing climate. 
 

For advice on how to overhaul your lawn, take a look at a fact sheet from the CSU Extension that Tony co-authored. 

Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!

Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.

In 2025, chatbots are part of our everyday life. They pop up on your screen while you’re checking your bank account or making an online purchase.  

But a few years from now, it may be just as easy to have a conversation with a chatbot who recreates a dead loved one.  That’s the idea behind a kind of technology called a generative ghost. 

Jed Brubaker is an associate professor in the Department of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, and one of the people leading the development of generative ghosts. Jed is part of a team that recently received $75,000 from Google to study how generative ghosts could become part of our lives.  

In the NoCo’s Brad Turner spoke with Jed in November about what a visit with the generative ghost of a dead loved one would feel like. We’re listening back to that conversation today. 

Jed also leads the Digital Legacy Clinic – a free clinic at CU to help people who want to get a deceased loved one’s digital affairs in order. We spoke with him about it earlier this year.

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Sign up for the In The NoCo newsletter: Visit KUNC.org
Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Email us: [email protected]
Like what you're hearing? Help more people discover In The NoCo by rating the show on your favorite podcast app. Thanks!
 
Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
 
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.