With the pandemic threatening in-person schooling, the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District Board of Education has been meeting weekly, and sometimes twice a week, to oversee the options offered to families. The met Monday evening and are meeting again tonight (Wednesday.)

At last count there are 13,281 public school students in the borough and about 11,000 are presumed to return to the classroom, with others staying home learning remotely or attending a homeschool program. The district asked families to enroll students by last Friday, however, which families are doing what is still in flux.

The Alaska Voices project, launched as a podcast in early May, is designed to build bridges of knowledge through conversations between Alaskans about Alaska. In this fifth KUAC episode, project co-founders Bob Bolton and Jessie Robertson share conversations that revolve around the theme of “Upward Battles: Navigating Hurdles and Overcoming Barriers.”

In this episode, Bob mention’s an article that Lily Cohen wrote for Scientific American – it can be read herehttps://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/one-more-barrier-faced-by-women-in-science/ .  Malinda Chase also talks about the carbon cycle. For those unfamiliar with the carbon cycle, an introduction to the topic can be read herehttps://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/getting-dirt-carbon .

Time to forget all your cares for a few and enjoy the sounds of Trinidad with our local pan band, Cold Steel Pan Orchestra. Learn about how to become a steel pan player and where the pans came from while dancing and swaying to your favorites played on the pans. This session will lift your spirits!

Thanks to UAF's Summer Sessions and Michelle Bartlett for getting creative and filming Musc in the Garden and inviting KUAC's Lori Neufeld to the filmings to conduct interviews for Alaska "Almost" Live. Also thanks to Josh Bennett of Sound Reinforcement Specialists, James Bartlett on sound,  and Joel Parrott of Alaska Universal Productions for  the audio recordings.

Alaska Live is made possible by a generous grant from Design Alaska.

KUAC's Dan Bross talks with Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy climate specialist Rick Thoman about record low Arctic sea ice.

Is the Republican Party fracturing? The Lincoln Project has released a series of blistering media ads against President Trump. Our mavens, Alexander Hirsch, professor of Political Science at UAF, and Nate Bauer who directs the University of Alaska Press are in with analysis.