PODCASTS
Our teaching artists are all involved in professional projects, whether producing podcasts for NPR affiliates across the nation, or multiple genre films. The Founder of the Institute, Suzi Montgomery, has worked for 10+ years in radio, having co-founded SQ Radio with her long-term colleague Sheri Quinn Gibbs. For three years in the mid 2000's they broadcasted a weekly science radio show that played on NPR affiliates across Utah and California, and had a podcast of over 100 shows on iTunes. We created the show to highlight the power of storytelling and its potential to make the world a more just and interesting place. Since 1999, SQ Radio, now SQ Media has evolved to incorporate all media platforms as impactful tools to bring awareness to social and environmental issues, and shed a refreshing light on the scientists and other thought leaders across the world whose creativity and curiosity make entertaining stories. You can listen to a few of our podcasts below. To listen to more, go to our podcast channel.
We are currently producing a historical/political series that includes the show posted below called: What's Going on in Lebanon? A Commander's Perspective and working on a show called: US & Ireland: From The Troubles to Borders and Brexit, which will be broadcasted in Utah on KCPW, UPR, & KRCL and on KZYX in California on December, 2020.
The institute currently teaches youth podcasting, which started with a youth arm of SQ Media called SQuid. Scroll down to the youth podcast section on this page to listen to a few of the youth-produced and youth-featured pieces that came out of that program.To listen to more youth podcasts check out our youth radio page at SQ Media.
Also featured is our most recent work with teens, where we worked in tandem with University of Utah biologists, bringing science and voice to teens in youth-in-care facilities. They explored the science through multiple artforms, one of which was producing a podcast series called "Wake-Up Call!" about the 5 major threats (extinction, biodiversity loss, overconsumption, climate change, and pollution) identified by a group of Stanford scientists, to life on our planet.
What’s Going on in Lebanon? A Commander’s Perspective
Journalism/Reporting
Ramsey Farrage was just a kid in the Lebanese mountains when civil war broke out in 1975. He grew up quickly and turned into a trained soldier and leader, protecting his entire region in Druze territory near Beirut. After fighting for nearly 15 years, Farrage moved his young family to the United States. He still has strong ties to Lebanon and from the Mountain West city of Salt Lake, Farrage describes the making of the October Revolution in this half-hour feature.
_JPG.jpg)
Tracking the Indomitable Coyote
Wildlife & Conservation
Tracking the coyote from the rangeland to the streets of Chicago to the parched desert takes us on a thorny trail filled with political, and ethical strife, that ultimately forces us to confront the human struggle for power over nature.
Sundance Film Festival: Chasing Ice Wins the Best Cinematography Award
Journalism/Reporting
SQ catches up with photographer James Balog and filmmaker Jeff Orlowski at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012 where their film, Chasing Ice, premiered and won the excellence in cinematography award. The film follows Balog on his quest to document the melting of the world’s glaciers using time lapse photography, but words can hardly convey what they managed to capture.
YOUTH PODCASTS
Polygamy by Jahnavi Stone
This project at City Academy Charter School was in partnership with the Utah Division of State History. These youth stories are based on and tied to an archive of over 100 interviews with the Southern Utah Rancher done by Suzi Montgomery and Jay Haymond who documented the past 100 years of land use in Garfield and Kane counties and what is now known as the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. The goal was to bring these teens closer to their own history. Through art projects from painting to photography, we got to know the students, their stories and then introduced them to the tape of these old women and men ranchers with whom they were quite surprised they had something in common with. The joint stories unfolded...
Youth Anti-Idling Campaign
Students from schools across the Wasatch Front in the Salt Lake City area initiate a clean air campaign that starts with their own parents turning off their cars when picking them up at school.
Wake-Up Call! Biodiversity Loss Series
After a series of workshops with scientists and artists, and watching the film Racing Extinction, teens paint, and write, discuss and speak out about Biodiversity Loss and the challenges we face in a youth podcast series called Wake-Up Call! In this series, teens introduce Biodiversity Loss as one of the 5 major threats to life on Earth, calling on the public to listen and be part of the solution.