Arts & Culture

Ethan Shirley and Alex Carney both hail from the University of Michigan and are co founders of the Pantanal Music Exchange.

Shirley founded the Pantanal Center for Education and Research is a non profit organization that focuses on science, technology and sustainable community development.

Last summer, Shirley and Carney were setting up some science and technology workshops at the Nazaré orphanage in rural Brazil when the director of the orphanage mentioned in passing that there was a room full of unused instruments.

This week, State of Opportunity is focused on how race shapes opportunities for Michigan's children. Tomorrow you can tune in to Jennifer Guerra's hour-long documentary exploring the topic. The documentary airs at 3 p.m. and at 10 p.m. 

I think many adults are aware that race still plays a big role in children's lives. But many adults aren't sure how to talk about it with kids. Today, on State of Opportunity, I have a story looking at some strategies that can help. 

One of the biggest takeaways for me, both as a journalist and as a parent, is to embrace the uncertainty. My biggest fear in talking about race with my daughter is that I'm going to say or do something wrong. What if I accidentally make her racist?

Do your kids spend too much time with video games? Well, they might keep it up in college.

In Dr. David Chesney's engineering courses,  students at the University of Michigan create video games and apps for the greater good.

Dr. Chesney is a professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering.

"We always try to build games for the social good, and recently we tried directing them to specific disabilities like cerebral palsy," Chesney said.

This week, ArtPod is aaaall about the ladies.

You name ‘em, we’ve got them: Michigan photographers, amateur actresses, adventure authors ... the works.

What unites them? They all seek a change.

First up, two moms who found each other in the neonatal intensive care unit. 

Sara Joy was about to lose her infant son. Monni Must was volunteering her talents as a family photographer, coming in to take a final family portrait for Sara and her son. What they didn’t know is how those photos would help them both heal.

As we move into our middle years many of us yearn to do something to change things up in a big way.

Battle Creek's Loreen Niewenhuis took that question and really came up with something different: she got up from her desk, put on her hiking boots and started walking.

First Loreen walked around Lake Michigan.

Then she decided to walk over a thousand miles - hiking the shorelines of all five Great Lakes.

Her adventures are chronicled in her new book A One-Thousand-Mile Great Lakes Walk: One Woman's Trek Along the Shorelines of All Five Great Lakes published by Crickhollow Books.

Niewenhuis has taken off her hiking boots and joins us today on Stateside.

Listen to the full interview above.