Sparked Podcast

On the cusp of high school, four girls in a rural middle school talk with researchers about why they talk the way they do and how hard they’ve tried to change themselves to be accepted by their peers.

On July 24, 2001, something arrived on Earth. It would take six years for it to be noticed. And even longer to prove it existed.

Some high school students went into the mountains to learn to look for stars and discovered who they could become.

There was this teacher who believed that the way math was taught could be different in her very rural county. That kids could better understand it and make it their own. That they could score much higher. That teachers could stay longer. She was right.

Twenty-two years ago a crime took place in the middle of the night. It left a 5-year-old with scars and without her father. As she grew up, Katie Haught wanted the justice system to know the truth about her dad.

Two college students arrived at a school gym and showed young children how water works. By the end of it, the kids knew that water doesn't keep itself clean. And that science is this thing that West Virginians do all the time. And they can do it, too.

What does the word “Appalachia” conjure? For a lot of people, the answer was “black and white photography.” You can still see a lot of the old-timey photos in a Google search. Nancy Andrews and 100 Days in Appalachia are changing that.

After the 2016 election, everyone wanted to get to know the real West Virginia. And it turns out that there’s a book that can help them do just that – and it’s full of some of the most noteworthy and fresh literary voices from this place.

A lot of people need jobs in Southern West Virginia. And area farmers needed to sell their food. Ben Gilmer put some skin in the game and is putting ex-coal miners back to work on mountaintop and rooftop farms.

When Ysabel Bombardiere walked into a middle school classroom to recruit girls for a coding club, she heard boys say, “Girls cannot code.” The girls in the Kanawha County Girls Who Code club are now saying, “Wanna bet?”

You might know about Appalachian music. Kids in West Virginia sometimes don’t. Travis Stimeling and his band of college students are teaching them the music from their past and how it can be part of their future.

Sparked is a podcast of West Virginia University Magazine that is all about the people who are changing Appalachia’s future for the better.