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Ways & Means

Ways and Means features bright ideas for how to improve human society. The show is produced by the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.
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Now displaying: 2019
Sep 13, 2019

Four-year-olds are expected to be able to behave in the classroom, but more and more preschools are kicking children out for bad behavior. In this episode: new research into how to best help children control themselves in the classroom.

Read a transcript of this episode.

Music: Theme music by David Schulman. "Rate Sheet," "Lina My Queen," "Tiny Putty," "Rose Ornamental," by Blue Dot Sessions. Music licensed under Creative Commons attribution.

Jun 12, 2019

On this episode we go inside an innovative, free public program that helps new moms and dads adjust to life with a newborn. In each location where the Family Connects program is offered, all families, rich and poor, are eligible to have a visiting nurse come right to the home after the birth of a child. The program has been shown to improve parenting behavior and reduce emergency medical care for infants.

Read the episode transcript

Music: Theme music by David Schulman. “Calm and Collected,” “Tendon,” “Stuffed Monster,” “Dance of Felt,” “Heather,” “Gale,”  by Blue Dot Sessions. Music licensed under Creative Commons attribution.  

Apr 29, 2019

Climate change is affecting both nature and the economy. Who will take the hardest hit financially as the world heats up, and can anything be done about it?

We meet a commercial clammer in Maine who is figuring out how to deal with the effect climate change is having on his industry. And environmental economist Billy Pizer has been calculating the future costs of climate change. Pizer is Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

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Music: Theme music by David Schulman. “Softly Villainous", "Lakeside Path", "The Nocturne", "Fresno Alley", "Crumbling Dock", "An Oddly Formal Dance" by Blue Dot Sessions.  Music licensed under Creative Commons attribution. 

Also "Khreshchatyk" and "Gaia in Fog" by Dan Bodan and "Fresno Alley" by Josh Lippi & The Overtimers, No Copyright Music/YouTube Free Music Library.

Read the episode transcript.

Special thanks to the Duke Sanford World Food Policy Center for their support. Their podcast is called The Leading Voices in Food.

Mar 20, 2019

A research team from Duke University treks into the Himalayas to investigate why a promising way to deliver electricity to those who need it, the micro-hydro minigrid, sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

This is the third of a four-part series on understanding and dealing with a changing climate.

Music: Theme music by David Schulman. “Heather,” “Ultima Thule,” “Sylvestor,” “Slate Tracker,” “One Quiet Conversation,” “A Certain Lightness,” and “Greyleaf Willow,” by Blue Dot Sessions.  Music licensed under Creative Commons attribution. 

Read a transcript of this episode.

 

Mar 6, 2019

What motivates commuters to leave their cars behind, and take the bus or a bike to work instead? A government innovation team in Durham, North Carolina recently tested several ideas with real commuters. The best one was so effective, it landed a million-dollar prize from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Guests include Durham mayor Steve Schewel and Joey Sherlock of the Duke University Center for Advanced Hindsight. Sherlock teaches the Behavioral Economics for Municipal Policy Class at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

This is the second of a four-part series looking at policy ideas for understanding and dealing with a changing climate.

Music: Theme music by David Schuman. Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions. Licensed under Creative Commons attribution.

Feb 20, 2019

There is about a 40-percentage point gap between Democrats and Republicans in their concern for climate change. New research suggests a solution for working around this deep-seated partisanship. PhD candidate Emily Pechar has found that when parents think about  parental identity rather than partisan identity, they are more likely to be concerned about climate change.

Guests include Megan Mullin, an associate professor of environmental politics at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis.

This is the first of a four-part series on understanding and dealing with a changing climate.

Feb 16, 2019

Season 4 of Ways & Means returns Wednesday, February 20, 2019.

We’re kicking off with a miniseries on climate change. We'll look at new research into what it takes to turn climate change skeptics into climate change believers. Also, how can cities can nudge commuters into doing the right thing for the climate? And we'll head to Nepal for a look at how to bring power to places in the developing world where the electric grid simply can’t go.

It’s the Ways & Means miniseries featuring policy ideas to help in the fight against a changing climate.

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