Sparked Podcast WVU Magazine

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.