iSeeChange

So, what happens, when a family of ranchers and coal miners sit down for breakfast with a climate scientist from NASA, to talk about global warming and drought? For iSeeChange and KVNF, Julia Kumari Drapkin found out.

Last week the iSeeChange Almanac launched online. For KVNF and iSeeChange, Julia Kumari Drapkin reports on what people saw changing:

Organic Farmer, Greg Cranson, wants to know how microbes in the soil of plants helps improve plant life, especially during these uncertain times for irrigation water. iSeeChange takes a look at the big powers of tiny microbes to negotiate water with plants--they may even play a role in the weather.

iSeeChange is a participatory environmental reporting project led by Julia Kumari Drapkin at KVNF. It generates story topics from users' weather observations, and then taps scientists to explain the whys and hows. This bottom-up crowd-sourcing has foreshadowed some of the nation's biggest recent weather stories—weeks and sometimes even months in advance. Stories sourced from the KVNF community have been reported throughout 2012.

Bark beetles flourish with dry warm weather, which makes 2012 the perfect year for them to take advantage of weakened pine trees. But this year's record setting warm dry weather made for a surprise bumper crop among fruit tree farmers in the North Fork Valley. For iSeeChange and KVNF, Julia Kumari Drapkin takes a look at what changes in this year's growing season boosted the bumper.

Produced by Julia Kumari Drapkin, the iSeeChange project at KVNF is part of Localore, a nationwide production of AIR designed to accelerate transformation and extend public service media to all Americans.   KVNF was selected as one of  only 10 Localore stations across the country—learn more at airmediaworks.org. Localore is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Wyncote Foundation, the John T. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Interactive storytelling partner Zeega co-produced TheAlmanac.org with iSeeChange.

It’s Halloween. Costumes are ready, the candy is bought, and houses are decked out with pumpkins and scary decorations. Some of those decorations include black cats, bats, and spider webs. In the last couple of months, residents on the Western Slope have reported to KVNF’s iSeeChange Project they’ve been seeing more spiders than usual this fall, particularly BLACK WIDOW spiders. Reporter Julia Kumari Drapkin has this story.

Stories of change in the KVNF listening area, produced by Julia Kumari Drapkin and Jordan Schevene.

It’s Labor Day. As people celebrate the last weekend of summer, KVNF’s Julia Kumari Drapkin and the iSeeChange project takes a look back at how the timing of flowers this season has affected backyard gardens, backcountry ecology, and even people’s back pockets.

iSeeChange is produced by Julia Kumari Drapkin and brought to you by KVNF and Localore, a national public media initiative. If you like what you hear, you can like the iSeeChange facebook page and participate in the conversation.

iSeeChange producer, Julia Kumari Drapkin, speaks with with local old timers Dallas and June Harding and others. Having lived and worked the land in the area for decades, they give us their observations on change in the area over time.