Living On Earth is a weekly, impartial news journal devoted exclusively to coverage of ecology that is carried on 274 NPR stations in the United States. It has had previous support from the Informal Science Education Program for initial series production and to help expand the series from a half hour formation to an hour-long show. This grant will enable the World Media Foundation to deepen and strengthen the reporting of the science and technology of environmental change by employing a staff science reporter and a staff researcher with a Ph.D. in biology. The science reporter will enable the project to respond more quickly to emerging issues, as well as providing more consistent and better prepared science coverage. The research will help the producers better interpret new developments and studies, help identify new topics, and improve accuracy and balance. The series also will add the topic of marine environments to their major areas of concern. There currently is little media coverage of the rapid loss of healthy coral reefs, the collapse of commercial fisheries, and the changing ocean chemistry. The project will continue to covers such major topics as biological diversity, climate change, environmental toxicology, and agricultural science. Steve Curwood, the Executive producer and host of Living on Earth, will continue as the PI for the project. The science producer/editor will be Dan Grossman. He has a B.S. in physics and a Ph.D. in political science and has taught science journalism at Boston University. The project advisory committee consists of Arjun Makhijani, Greg Watson, Theo Colborn, Catherine Vandermoer, William Moomaw, George Woodwell, Michael McElroy, Jane Lubechenco, Carl Safina, Sylvia Earle, and Jerry Schubel. The series is produced by the World Media Foundation in cooperation with WBUR, National Public Radio, and Harvard University.
The Mount Washington Observatory will produce a nationally syndicated, short-format radio series on the weather over a three year period. The request is for a declining amount in each of the three years with the project becoming self-sustaining at the end of that period. The daily, two-minute programs present facts about and explanations of the physical processes in all levels of the atmosphere, the nature of meteorological systems, weather observation and forecasting, and first- and second-hand accounts relating the effect weather and climate have on people. During a fifteen month pilot stage, Weatherwise (Title to be changed to The Weather Notebook) has been carried on 115 public and commercial stations. The NSF grant will provide the producers with the resources needed to expand carriage with a goal of carriage on at least 225 stations, to implement formative and summative evaluation, to upgrade production, to increase promotion, and to make ancillary material available to the public. The ancillary materials will include a printed weather notebook which serves as a field guide for listeners in which they can make their own weather observations and draw conclusions, an educational weather poster, The Weather Notebook transcripts and study suggestions, and a weather observation exhibit at the Mount Washington Observatory Museum. The PI for the project will be David Thurlow of the Mount Washington Observatory who will serve as writer, host, and program coordinator. The producer will be Douglas Mayer whose previous experience includes with NPR on Car Talk. Evaluation will be conducted by RMC Research Corporation.