Monthly Archives: February 2020

58 posts

Flight To Freedom (2/60 minute programs)

Flight To Freedom (2/60 minute programs) airs Wednesday at 1 a.m. beginning 2/5 – “Flight to Freedom” tells the complete story of the underground railroad. Host Cicely Tyson narrates this profile of the people, places and events behind one of the most remarkable yet largely untold chapters of American history. The documentary chronicles the rise of the slave system and follows the many freedom trails northward — from Memphis up the Mississippi, from Kentucky across the Ohio River to Ripley and Oberlin, from Maryland to Philadelphia, through upstate New York and into Canada. It concentrates on the men and women of all races who served on or who were saved by the underground railroad. And while the civil war put an end to the need for the railroad, “Flight to Freedom” reveals situations where slavery stopped in name only. The program also tells the modern day story of the growing efforts to preserve what little legacy remains of the underground railroad — how communities are trying to save one-time station houses and how people are retracing the trail their great grandparents took to Canada.

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Crowd in the Cloud (4/60 minute programs)

Crowd in the Cloud (4/60 minute programs) airs Tuesdays at 3 a.m. beginning 2/4 – –  a documentary series showcasing the power of Citizen Science in the Digital Age. This multi-part series, hosted by former NASA Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati, takes viewers on a global tour of the projects and people on the front lines of citizen science and crowdsourcing. By observing their environment, monitoring neighborhoods, and collecting information about the world around the citizens are helping professional scientists advance knowledge while speeding up new discoveries and innovations.

  • 2/4 – #101 –“Even Big Data Starts Small” – 20,000 volunteers across the U.S. measure precipitation: when extreme weather hits, emergency managers turn their data into life-saving alerts. Armchair mappers worldwide update information used by first responders after the Nepal earthquake. A new project, EyesOnALZ, enlists the crowd to speed up research on Alzheimer’s disease. DIY enthusiasts from Public Lab map the BP oil spill with kites, balloons and cameras and continue to watchdog pollution. The crowd, using mobile tech and the cloud contribute to science that saves lives.
  • 2/11 – #102 – “Citizens + Scientists” – Citizen scientists track air and water pollution at fracking sites in windswept Wyoming and five other states, using simple but science-based techniques developed by the “Bucket Brigade.” On idyllic East Coast trout streams, volunteers from Trout Unlimited monitor water quality regularly, generating baseline data that will prove invaluable in the event of future pollution events. Community members connected with professional researchers to tackle Flint’s drinking water crisis and now the same is happening in Philadelphia and other cities. In China, citizens use government data and a unique mobile app to report environmental crimes. When citizens and scientists partner, it’s a win-win for all concerned.
  • 2/18 – #103 – “Viral vs. Virus” – Sensors on asthma inhalers generate real-time maps of environmental dangers to help patients, physicians and disease detectives in Louisville, Kentucky. Street knowledge was also crucial in a historic medical breakthrough: John Snow’s mapping of cholera fatalities in 19th century London. In West Oakland, California, citizens confront air pollution and rising asthma rates by collecting traffic data. Local ordinances are changed and everyone breathes easier. Can apps and maps combat globalized diseases in a warming world? Stories of citizen science fighting mosquito-borne diseases with apps and crowd-sourced data in Barcelona, Houston and New Orleans. In Kenya, Medic Mobile develops smart but low-cost software to give simple phones powerful capabilities to help community health workers improve maternal and child health.
  • 2/25 – #104 – “Citizens 4 Earth” – Counting birds for more than 100 years generates data on a changing climate and there’s an app for that: eBird. Surfer science using smart tech tracks ocean acidification and coastal temperatures in the Smartfin project, a recent startup. We spend “A Year in the Life of Citizen Science” including a Thanksgiving Monarch Butterfly Watch in California. Seasonal change is tracked by Latina and Native American teens in springtime in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and horseshoe crabs are surveyed in summer by retirees along mid-Atlantic coasts. In Uganda, World Bank economists and local partners generate data for sustainable development. The far-ranging potential of “Citizen Science in the Digital Age.”

Episode 4

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Illusions in Stone

Illusions in Stone airs 2/28 at 3 a.m. –  – Illusions in Stone tells the global story of the emerald trade. It is a story of hope, faith, danger and desire. It is a place where you will meet righteous thieves, reckless illegal miners, and religious scholars in an underground business. They are all united by their fascination with the green stones. Our journey begins in the mines of Brazil, and takes us to India, Zambia, Israel and Colombia where workers face danger and uncertainty below ground and equally dangerous vice and temptation above ground. We meet the miners, traders, scholars, warriors and clergymen. Their stories are tied together by the thread of hope, by the green dream that calls them back to the mines and markets, the dream the often proves to be an illusion.

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Of Race and Reconciliation

Of Race and Reconciliation airs 2/27 at 4 a.m. – chronicles the Chinese experience in America around the year 1885. That was the year the Chinese residents of Tacoma were forcefully expelled from the city against the backdrop of increasingly alarming and even violent tensions between American citizens caught in an economic downturn and Chinese immigrants seeking opportunity in “Gum San,” or the Land of the Golden Mountains they had heard about in America. Of Race and Reconciliation producer Forrest Burger traveled through six states to take an unflinching look at this period in time, but also document how the tensions between American citizens and immigrant populations provide relevant lessons in today’s political climate, and in Tacoma’s case, how far efforts toward reconciliation have come.

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John Paul II in Ireland:  A Plea for Peace

John Paul II in Ireland:  A Plea for Peace – airs 2/26 at 1 a.m. – – In the fall of 1979, John Paul II was one year into a transformative papacy filled with hope and dynamism. Northern Ireland was a decade into the Troubles, a bloody conflict that shrouded all of Ireland in gloom. The dramatic encounter between this charismatic Polish Pope and the “land of Saints and Scholars,” is captured poignantly in John Paul II in Ireland, a historical documentary and spiritual reflection of what ultimately brought peace to Northern Ireland.

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Historic Attucks Theatre:  Apollo of the South

Historic Attucks Theatre:  Apollo of the South airs 2/20 at 4:30 a.m. –  – One of Hampton Roads’ greatest treasures, the Attucks Theatre, turns 100 years old. Musicians of the greatest caliber have performed at the Attucks, legends like Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole just to name a few. The 600-seat venue was an instant source of pride to Norfolk’s Black Community. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

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Jason Reynolds @ the 2018 National Book Festival

Jason Reynolds was recently named the Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (see the CBS interview here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jason-reynolds-library-of-congress-national-ambassador-for-young-peoples-literature/) , and he is using this platform to empower young people around the country to “GRAB THE MIC: Tell Your Story”. So, we went looking around the internet for encouraging and interesting videos where Jason Reynolds takes the mic and tells his story. We found this from the 2018 National Book Festival.

Jason expresses that when he writes a book, he keeps in mind that it is important to tell the stories of real people so that kids who read his books will see themselves. He talks about connecting to other people’s experiences through literature, and how he makes his characters real. His stories feature characters who go through emotional times, yet still handle these things with humor and humility.

“My mother always says, ‘Don’t ever trust nobody who is all cry and no laugh.’ Right? I think that like, if we were being honest about humanity, there’s no way that we could talk about the bad things without talking about the joy.” – Jason Reynolds

It is also especially powerful when the audience members ask him really thoughtful, interesting questions, and he devotes his full attention to them. It’s worth watching until the very very end.

If you want to see which Jason Reynold’s books we have in our OverDrive account, click here: http://librarymedia.blog.monroe.edu/2020/01/23/jason-reynolds-resources/