Unwinding: a podcast from the University of Kansas

What does it mean to commemorate a moment in time? For Professor of Communication Studies Dave Tell, commemorating the legacy of the murder of Emmett Till has taken him on a journey from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago. As part of the Emmett Till Memory Project, Tell has worked with Till's family to help shepherd his story and to preserve his memory. Hear Tell discuss his latest book Remembering Emmett Till, how he came to be involved with the Emmett Till Memory Project, and his work with memory, race and place on the latest episode of Unwinding.

Associate Dean for Science Research Joy Ward joins us to talk about her research with plants and climate change, how she first became interested in biology, and how important it is to her to mentor students at KU.

Music: Lee Rosevere's "Let's Start at the Beginning" and "Max Flashback"

Listen as Associate Teaching Professor Jennifer Delgado from KU's Department of Physics & Astronomy talks about the stretches of the universe, the summer of alien news, and how anyone can contribute to new discoveries at KU.

Music: Lee Rosevere's "Let's Start at the Beginning" and "Max Flashback"

Hannah Britton by College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Unwinding with Katie Rhine & Macie Rouse: Community researchers by College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Unwinding with Ward Lyles by College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers -- so many caring people in this world." - Mr Rogers

Paul Stock, an environmental sociologist at KU, is a helper. He's driven by that same Mr Rogers optimism as he seeks to understand and consider solutions to some of the great challenges facing the world - inequality, food insecurity and environmental degradation. For Paul, the solutions lie in the creative capacities of us all to rethink how we do things and to make choices that, no matter how small, make the world better. In his research, Paul points to the examples of experimental uses of land for entrepreneurial food growing, like the Common Ground project here in Lawrence, Kansas, and to the potential of small farmers around the world to model new ways of doing things that address global issues. Small-scale projects can have big impacts, especially when they are the result of collaboration between students, community leaders and people across the world.

In this episode of Unwinding we sat down with Paul Stock at a Common Ground plot in Lawrence - with the crickets, bees, train horns and all - and discovered why everything you think you know about farmers and farming is wrong. Listen along and then check out the New Farmers project, a collaborative research project between photographer D. Bryon Darby, designer Tim Hossler, and Paul. An observation of today's independent farmer, the project is an ongoing exploration of experiments in contemporary farming.

Oh, and this episode also includes a beautiful passage from Phil Holman-Hebert of SweetLove Farm,  and a story of beer, hot-dogs and baseball.

Do aliens exist on Mars? Possibly. But how do humans actually go about answering that question? One option is to examine certain rocks to understand the types of  life-forms, like squishy things, that roamed the earth billions of years ago. That's what Alison Olcott does in her role as associate professor of pealeobiogeochemistry in the Department of Geology at the University of Kansas. And while playing on Google Maps one day, Alison found that those rocks are found not far from KU, in the Gypsum Hills of Kansas. Who knew Kansas and Mars were so similar!

In this episode of Unwinding we chat to Alison Olcott about science communication and squishy things, undergraduate research and Jurassic park, barbies and why chemistry is not as hard to understand as you think!

Music: Lee Rosevere's "Let's Start at the Beginning" and "Alien's - Deep Dark" by Deep Dark.