Teaching through screens is part of getting kids ready for the digital world.  But when do tech and screens help students and when do they get in the way?  CU-Boulder Journalism Student Juliana Krigsman explores these questions with teachers, with Boulder Valley School District’s Academic Services Director Lynn Gershman, and with CU-Boulder Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Rosalinde Kaiser.  

Host: Benita Lee

Climate “hushing” (start time: 5:41) Since President Trump began his second term as president in January, 2025, his administration, at a dizzying pace, has attacked climate change as a Democratic elite “hoax” and gutted federal funding for climate-related research and institutions. Partly in response to these attacks, and in an attempt to appeal to more centrist voters ahead of the midterm elections, many left-leaning politicians have decided to stop talking directly about climate change, and to pull back on initiatives to combat global warming. This pattern is known as “climate hushing.” Some argue that it doesn’t mean these leaders care any less about climate change, and that it’s a necessary strategy to reach more centrist voters. But critics  argue that climate hushing is more insidious and, in effect, it is spurring a vicious cycle: The less leaders talk about climate change, the less the public thinks it’s important and feels inspired to take action. In this week’s How On Earth, host Susan Moran interviews journalist Sammy Roth, who recently wrote an article about climate “hushing” on his Climate Colored Goggles Substack; and Dr. Leah Sprain, an associate professor of Communications at the University of Colorado Boulder, who studies democratic engagement.

Host/Producer: Susan Moran

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In her new book, The Power of the Pause: 90 Seconds to Calm, Reset, and Reconnect, Jillian Pransky teaches readers how a brief 90-second break can help regulate the nervous system and stop automatic, reactive habits. Today, we get into some of the science underlying the utility of the pause, but further, we can easily use it to step out of the stress loop and into a grounded, centered presence, able to meet whatever is happening with intention and compassion. Jillian Pransky has been a mindfulness teacher, yoga therapist, and practitioner for over 30 years, giving her plenty of experience with the power of so-called somatic, or body-centered and self-awareness practices can bring about transformation, healing, and connection… in ourselves, in those around us, and in the world.

Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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A heart attack forced Boulder community leader and journalist Sam Fuqua to need emergency care.  While being wheeled into the operating room, Sam hoped to soothe his anxiety by hearing some favorite music.  His hope had scientific merit.  Studies like this indicate that surgery patients who get to choose what music plays during surgery, require fewer painkillers and have an easier recovery.

Music might seem a simple and easy comfort to offer surgery patients, but when How on Earth’s Mac Hebebrand asked some local surgery centers about their views on music, almost all declined the interviews . . . all, except for Boulder Heart Cardiologist Nelson Trujillo.

Stay tuned to hear Cardiologist Nelson Trujillo‘s discussion about music during surgery, and to find out what happened to Sam.

Host: Mac Hebebrand

Colorado River Water (starts 1:00)   Steep cuts are ahead in the use of Colorado River water by Arizona and California.  But what about Colorado?  For answers, we talk with CU-Boulder’s Doug Kenney, water law expert and  chair of the Colorado River Project.

Ghostbots (starts )  AI apps offer to help people  “talk” with the dead.  CU Boulder Information Scientists  Jed Brubaker and Jack Manning and Boulder Unitarian Church Community Outreach minister Jeremy Nichol share research and insights about how these apps work and user responses.

Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

What is a wilderness, really? Here in the US we think of it as undeveloped land, put aside to appreciate its beauty and remoteness. In other lands and cultures, wilderness is a powerful, ancient concept, at the intersection of landscape, philosophy, and ecology. For thousands of years, people have sought out uncontrolled, unknown, or uncharted nature in search of religious epiphany, self-actualization, and an escape from normal life. More recently these “pristine” places have been seen as the subject of a last effort to repair a planet imperiled by humans. In her new book The Savage Wilderness, award-winning writer Cal Flyn traverses many of these wild lands—the supposedly uninhabited wilds of the world—and finds that such truly untouched lands don’t exist: Nearly every wilderness has been or is actively inhabited by humans. Here are ascetics in search of God in the desert; lonely shepherds tending their sheep under the stars; missionaries preaching from shacks deep in the jungle; lamas meditating under lofty mountain peaks. Cal is the current Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Wesleyan University, and has written for publications including The Guardian, National Geographic, and The Wall Street Journal. She was named a 2022 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, is the winner of the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of the British Academy Book Prize, the Ondaatje Prize, and the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. And as will hear, she speaks and writes articulately and passionately about the meaning of wilderness and why we should value it.

Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Gardens are popping up everywhere, from community plots to elementary school yards to vertical plantings. A unique approach proposed by award winning British landscaper, Harry Holding, is integrating the edible aspect of vegetable gardens with the esthetic side of flower, bush and tree landscapes. Harry is a renowned garden designer known for his award-winning creations at the Royal Horticulture Society Chelsea Flower Shown. In his gorgeous book, Eat Your Garden, he focuses on growing and designing with “edimentals” (plants that are both beautiful and edible).And, he provides a step by step approach for integrating edible gardening into any space. I’ll link to the book web site because the photos are stunning and while you might think this approach requires too much water for the Front Range, there are several edimentalists working in Colorado (Basalt and Glenwood Springs).

And speaking of links, here is the site for Cleanup Day: https://secure.everyaction.com/a8ryaNbYxEeVy63nAWFUzg2?contactdata=ywSl5RmBd9xS2BWXkMaiWOmVajroOxbf4dSMJZxu2pZwJYgi%2fkTwVJksNA4YM6tiLlWkXcAu5jcGzPpQs32OgNc4uxw6hM1dBzFLGC6HngS3UcslUDoN2xK4UhjkpvA8FMs0HG7DARHDpQU2Sis07+gcs8rbK0Ddmj32tiMJ8BHFAGgbqsbN+RySsiZiFUOHjkhx2udpY48pjPARak8SOg%3d%3d&quick=true&emci=77c479c0-557a-f111-b337-000d3a1558ce&emdi=3810aa15-b17b-f111-b337-000d3a1558ce&ceid=5381405

Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Microplastics: Health Concerns, Solutions (start time: 6:02)  The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued a new rule related to monitoring 30 unregulated chemicals in drinking water that could pose human health risks. While the list includes pesticides and so-called “forever” substances, it omits microplastics, as well as pharmaceuticals. That’s despite pressure from Democratic politicians, as well as advocacy groups over the last two years urging the EPA to include microplastics in the new rule due to human health concerns. This apparent about-face by the EPA, as well as the fact that this week is Plastics Pollution Awareness Week in Colorado, prompted us at How On Earth to summon experts to shed some light on what is known about the human health risks of exposure to microplastics, as well as what’s being done here in Colorado and nationwide to reduce plastic production and waste. Host Susan Moran interviews Dr. Trisha Vaidyanathan, science director at Beyond Plastics; Ryan Call, policy analyst at EcoCycle; and Emily Freeman, circular economy policy advisor at the City of Boulder. For info about how to join the Boulder Plastic Count (July 20-26), click here.

Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker

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Poking the Squid –  Good Reads calls author and illustrator Perrin Roosevelt Ireland’s new book a brilliantly funny, beautifully illustrated graphic nonfiction book that shatters our puritanical and binary notions of nature..

Hosts/Producers/Engineers: Shelley Schlender, Joel Parker

Parenting Across the Animal Kingdom (start time: 5:02) As humans, we tend to think that we raise our children with more care than any other animal on the planet. After all, human kids depend on their parents on average for much longer than do those of any other species. But are we really so unique in how we care? How do other animals out there care for their young? What are the evolutionary benefits of “it takes a village” childrearing, with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and others playing a big role, as compared to the nuclear family-type model:  mom and dad, or a single mom or dad? And are there evolutionary benefits of  “tough love” and extreme free-range parenting? Science journalist and humorist Elizabeth Preston starting asking such questions after giving birth to her first child nine years ago. She found answers (through scientists and their research, and quirky encounters) in the lives of  beetles, killer whales, Canada jays, elephants, poison frogs, and many more animals. In this week’s show, How On Earth host Susan Moran interviews Preston about her new book, The Creatures’ Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care.

Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker

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