The award-winning podcast Higher Ground from WSHU Public Radio has been selected for its third, one-hour broadcast special program.
The special will be distributed exclusively to public radio stations nationwide through American Public Media from January to May 2024. So, ask your public radio station to play Higher Ground this spring!
Higher Ground co-hosts J.D. Allen and Sabrina Garone find ways to cope with rising tides and climate change. This special is about the community science that unifies us around climate change.
Climate change can feel apocalyptic and unsolvable. Yet, communities across the U.S. are finding ways to adapt and build resilience to its impacts. Higher Ground tells the stories of people engaging in community science to take control and find understanding in changes to their environment. Empowered with information, these communities are able to keep cool heads in the face of global warming.
The special will be available digitally on the podcast May 1.
“Higher Ground tells a collection of stories that communities everywhere are increasingly struggling with — how to combat and adapt to our planet’s changing climate,” said Terry Sheridan, WSHU’s interim co-station manager. “I continue to hope that this series can help other coastal and shoreline communities, and that perhaps we can come together and find solutions together.”
The special is based around WSHU’s limited series Sound Science, exploring curiosity in science with a key focus of the Long Island Sound and its people's ability to continue to live, work and play in their changing environment, as well as feedback Higher Ground has heard from everyday people over the past few years about ways to respond to climate impacts.
The second season of Higher Ground puts the microphone in the hands of a classroom of student scientists as they come to grips with the global crisis in Connecticut’s largest city. The premier explored how communities must prepare, and people find ways to adapt to rising tides and extreme weather that threatens America’s first suburbs — on Long Island. Exploring solutions might give their home the best chance at survival and help save coastal places beyond their city, where millions of people call home.
The first season of Higher Ground received an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Excellence in Science Communication Award from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for “Best Science Reporting.”
J.D. Allen serves as WSHU's managing editor. He has reported for public radio stations across the Northeast. J.D. is a lecturer at Stony Brook University in New York. He's also a leader at the regional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Sabrina Garone is co-host and producer of Higher Ground, as well as our daily news podcast After All Things and other long-form news and music programs at the station.
Garone and Allen were part of a Peabody-nominated team for the podcast Still Newtown, marking 10-years since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Harriet Jones is Higher Ground’s editor. A longtime reporter and editor, Harriet has run busy newsrooms in Connecticut and Scotland. Early in her career, she taught broadcasting for the BBC World Service Trust at some of their international schools in Eastern Europe. Harriet won an Edward R. Murrow award from RTDNA for her reporting on Connecticut’s 2010 floods.
WSHU Public Radio is a group of not-for-profit, member-supported radio stations, owned and operated by Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT, that brings the best in public broadcasting to over 250,000 radio listeners and digital listeners in Connecticut and Long Island. Its classical music program Sunday Baroque is syndicated and heard on over 200 stations nationwide. All programming is available for streaming at www.wshu.org and for broadcast on 13 radio frequencies.