Semester in the West Podcasts
Welcome to the 2008 Semester in the West podcast page! Please click on the "play" buttons below to hear the many sounds, voices, and stories we encountered in our three months of travel throughout the American West. This project was produced by 2002 Westie Sarah Koenigsberg and made possible by a generous grant from Whitman College President George Bridges’ Innovations in Teaching and Learning Fund. Thanks also to Technical Manger Jay Heath for maintaining this site.
Pervasive Invasives, Part I
The West is under attack! In this podcast, Marie Westover explores invasive exotic plants in the American West. Along a 9,000 mile journey, 21 students encounter various widespread invasive plants and learn about their impacts on native ecosystems from personal experience, botanists, and fieldwork. (Part two can be found here) Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Home On The Range: Doing the “Right Thing” With Privately Owned Ranch Lands.
Imagine you own land in the west. The land you own could be used for many purposes including grazing, farming, or letting the land return to native wildlife habitat. What do you do with you land, and how do you justify your decision? The answer may be more difficult than you would think. Liz Townsend reports. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Excuse me, I think you dropped your public lands
Ever lost something before you knew you had it? Well, you own more than you could imagine - and it's disintegrating. In this podcast, Camila Thorndike tells the Western story most of us don’t ever hear: the decline of our public lands under the careless watch of the BLM. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Cattle in the West: the Beef of Public Lands Ranching
In this podcast, Chloe Summerland explores her own personal confusion concerning ranching in the American West. Speakers Jon Marvel, Mary O’Brien and Agee Smith are featured voices in this exploration. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Borderlines
Martin Stolen explores the trash and the scatter at the boundary between Arizona and Mexico. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
The West’s Sunny Future
Solar power is one of the most-talked about forms of alternative energy. In this piece, James Sledd explores the pros and cons of solar energy projects in the Mojave Desert. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Stories, Coal and Casinos: The Search for a Navajo Identity
Ben Serrurier looks at Ernest Jones, the Westies’ guide to Canyon de Chelly, and the night tour led. The tour led to a deeper look at the issues facing the Navajo Nation, and how modernity has effected their tribal identity. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Seeing Change in Scientific and Spiritual Terms
Lara Mehling tells the story of three Navajo individuals and their views on climate change in the context of rising opposition to the social injustice of a proposed third coal-fired power plant on the reservation. Myth and science collide to explain a changing environment. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
A Bite Size Sense of Place
Ever wondered what it would be like to live in a small rural western town? In this podcast episode Ben Hayes delves into the economic and social difficulties faced by those towns through the lens of Wallowa County Oregon and Bluff Utah, and begins to see for himself if he would want to live in one of those small western towns. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Paying Through the Hose: An Examination of the West's Most Manipulated Resource
The West is regularly used for natural resource extraction and transportation, but the public doesn't always know the story of one resource they use daily. Elena Gustafson reports from California about a story of environmental degradation born from the misuse of this resource--and most people don't even know there is a problem. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
The Power of Millions
A Navajo activist is fighting for her backyard and her family’s health in response to a proposed coal-fired power plant in northwestern New Mexico. But, in a world with an ever-increasing demand for energy, this coal plant would provide power to millions of people. Daniel Grant takes a look at how to balance health and power, and examines his role as an outsider in this energy dilemma. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
A New West Is About To Be Born
Jonathan Goldenberg, in his piece "A New West Is About To Be Born", explores the commitment the city of Aspen has made to develop local renewable energy projects. The city, as told by Jonathan, is not only committed to itself. It instead intends to become a model and mentor for communities across the nation and globe that desire to develop renewable energy projects but don’t have the financial security of Aspen. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
The Good, the Bad, and the Broken: Cowboys and Symbols in the West
With the advent of the New West, following the disappearance of the frontier, Erica Goad explores what the myth-surrounded cowboys are really like these days. By talking to ranchers, activists, and others, she discovers that symbols like the cowboy serve certain purposes but sometimes need makeovers. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Environmental Community in the West
In this piece, Shannon Flood explores two communities, one in Wallowa County, Oregon the other near Jackpot Nevada. These communities struggle with various environmental issues and address them differently based on their community infrastructure. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Local Eating
The local food industry in the interior American West is in a rapid decline due to global and industrial competition, not to mention its growing effects on climate change. In this piece, Hong-Nhi Do tells the story of farmers and ranchers of the West, and how one woman can impact the eating habits of 21 college students. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
A Cause of Compromise
In this piece, Abby Chapin explores the compromises and trade-offs facing energy policy in America through the work of The Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Untitled
In this piece, Rosa Brey examines the work of No More Deaths, a humanitarian aid organization working in the border zone. She addresses the issues surrounding the border and the work of this organization in addressing those issues. The border is a place of national unease, and Rosa tries to illuminate this problem and one small group’s solution to it. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Unconventional Conservationists
It’s not just college students planting trees and protesting. A range of motivators for environmental action is demonstrated through the stories of a rancher in Eastern Oregon, two activists in the Navajo Nation, and a development company in Southern California. Gabrielle Boisrame reports. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Trouble With Navajo Water
Theodore Barnhart explores the issues of water use and water inequality on the Navajo Nation. Water layer’s Stanly Pollock and Bidtah Becker provide insight into this confusing and convoluted issue while Theodore draws some conclusions about the difficulty of making decisions about water in the West. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Pervasive Invasives, Part II
As a follow-up to Marie Westover’s piece, Katrina Barlow explores the more confusing dilemma of exotics and natives. While invasive exotics are undeniably detrimental in the long run, they may still serve useful purposes in the short term. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
The Wild West: Bull-Elk, Bear, and Aspenites
What happens when Conservation Easements, ordinarily tools to conserve both landscapes and the families that live on them, stop being effective? In this podcast, Wynne Auld explores how vacation home ownership in Aspen, as a microcosm of wealthy Western resort areas, is twisting Conservation Easements into unexpected outcomes. Click play to hear this podcast... (MP3 download)
Click here to download a ZIP file containing all 21 podcasts.