We start off the show with an old feature, “What’s in season?”, and discussions of kale, squash, fresh herbs and even some late-season tomatoes! Sam Molnar, second-year Environmental Informatics and Environmental Justice master’s student at the School of Natural Resources and Environment, joins us for the show and tells us about a vegan squash soup he made recently. Sam lets us in on his recipe (that sounds amazing) so as Rebecca advised us, “squash soup it up, people!” (more…)

Saturday, September 27th 2014 marks the US Green Building Council’s third annual Green Apple Day of Service, during which parents, teachers, students, companies and local organizations dedicate their time to transforming schools into healthy, safe and productive learning environments through local service projects. The It’s Hot In Here crew decided to join the action as a registered project by dedicating this week’s show to the greening of schools–inside and out! (more…)

The It’s Hot in Here family kicked off the new  season with an introduction to 3 of our new hosts: Becca Baylor, Pearl Zeng, and Dania Gutierrez. We are really excited to welcome our new hosts to the family and are looking forward to what an new year of IHIH will bring.

Flipping the classroom is the theme for the start of the show! We brought in Nat Lichten, School of Natural Resources and Environment’s second-year policy student, to discuss with our news hosts their summer internships. Listen in to hear how students at SNRE are connecting with communities at the local, national and global level! (more…)

In September of 2013 (just as the ’13-’14 season of It’s Hot In Here was kicking off) Traverse City-based oil and gas company West Bay Exploration performed seismic tests west of Ann Arbor to map out potential sites for oil extraction. Eight months later, 300 people stood side by side to partake in an informational forum on oil exploration in Scio Township.  As West Bay actively seeks out the necessary mineral leases from Scio homeowners in order to drill, concerned residents are uniting to learn about oil leasing and empower fellow homeowners to fully explore their options before turning over drilling rights to the company. (more…)

Growing Hope, an Ypsilanti-based nonprofit, helps people improve their lives and communities through gardening and healthy food access.  Using a strengths-based approach, the Growing Hope team works to build peoples’ capacity to use community and school gardens as vehicles for positive social, economic, environmental and neighborhood change. They advocate for healthy food, manage an urban farmers’ market, and train youth and adults to make positive investments in their future.

…and they even take the show on the road with Clifford, the big red truck farm! (more…)

This week Frank Fejeran (Chef) and Zack Zavisa (Bartender) of The Ravens Club take us on a savory trip through culinary and liquid media.  Join us!

The journey begins with the delights and (occasional) challenges of sourcing the most local (and happily produced) produce, beef, and cheese, and continues on to the pleasures of creating (and drinking) classic and creative cocktails with small-batch spirits and house-made mixes – think fresh tonic, complex bitters, fermented fruits. (more…)

“It doesn’t take much reading about current events to find articles detailing the plight of migratory songbirds and butterflies like monarchs. Due to a variety of circumstances, but especially the loss of suitable feeding and breeding habitat, numbers have dropped significantly and there is no reason to believe that that course will be reversed unless we do something about it.

Fortunately, individual property owners can do something about it. Using a variety of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants in your yard will help to provide resting and feeding spots for these critters, even if your yard is small. (more…)

It’s not often the US is left off any major world atlas. But such was the case with the European Union-funded Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT) project, which has previously reported on and analyzed 1,000 environmental conflicts in more than 60 countries, including India, Ecuador, Turkey, Mexico and South America. This data was organized on an interactive online mapping platform known as the EJOLT Atlas, which allows users to search and filter environmental conflicts across 100 fields and to browse by commodity, company, country, and type of conflict. But until now, U.S. case studies had not been included in EJOLT’s efforts. (more…)

To many Native Americans, the spring and summer months are known as powwow season–celebratory gatherings in which people come together to dance, sing, socialize, and honor Native cultures. Brittany Anstead and Hayden Hedman, two SNRE students and active members of the Native American Students Association at the University of Michigan, helped organize the 42nd Annual Dance for Mother Earth Pow Wow, taking place April 5th and 6th at Skyline High School. Brittany and Hayden offer up a delightful overview of what the event will entail, including dance contests, a fashion show, and lots of fry bread! (more…)

Ian Makowske, lifelong competitive gymnast and SNRE master’s student, takes us behind the scenes of the upcoming NCAA Men’s Gymnastics Championships. Not only will the University of Michigan be hosting the event for the first time in 40 years, it’ll be the first time ever that the gymnastics championships go “zero waste”. Ian explains what exactly that means and offers us some insight into the incredible amount of organizing and planning that went into making it happen. (more…)