This week, we’re revisiting our episode “What Is Appalachia?” from December 2021. Appalachia connects mountainous parts of the South, the Midwest, the Rust belt and even the Northeast. The Appalachian Regional Commission defined the boundaries for Appalachia in 1965 with the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commision, a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. It was legislation that sought to expand social welfare, and some localities were eager for the money, while others resisted the designation. The boundaries and definition of Appalachia can now only be changed by an act of Congress.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting has been hard at work creating a pilot, interactive, web-video series called West Virginia STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math). It’s a collection of videos designed to inspire middle school kids, and arm teachers and parents with tools to help students navigate possible career options in the state.
What is STEAM?
At West Virginia Public Broadcasting, we’re taking STEM—an acronym for Science Technology, Engineering, and Math—and adding Arts to build STEAM in our communities and classrooms.
Why Art? So many STEM professionals talk about how important creativity and critical thinking are when it comes to conceiving outside-the-box solutions or innovations in STEM fields. So STEAM is just an amped-up version of STEM, and a more interdisciplinary approach to learning.
The idea for our STEAM initiative was the result of a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting and the state’s Department of Education. We want to give our educators tools to help inspire kids to be excited about learning science and math, and to teach kids about the variety of jobs in the state where we really need to develop a trained workforce.
We developed a pilot interactive video series around a handful of professionals who are engaged in STEAM careers in West Virginia: a researcher, a nurse, a pipefitter, an artist, and a couple forensic scientists. All the videos are presented in one YouTube Splash Page. Choose your own adventure:
Kroger and the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400 Union reached a “Fully Recommended Tentative Agreement” on a new contract Thursday for Mid-Atlantic division associates in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.
West Virginia’s state revenue for February 2024 fell $30.62 million below official estimates — nearly 10 percent lower than anticipated. Despite this, the state revenue remains above projections for the current fiscal year as a whole.
State officials report that more than $1 million was stolen from the Department of Health and Human Resources in a check fraud scheme. Roughly 85% of the stolen funds have been recovered so far.
Workers at 38 Kroger grocery stores in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio have voted to go on strike. Whether they do or not is dependent on further negotiations with the company.