Conversation as an Education Medium for the Age of Distraction - the ‘Art of Range’ Podcast

Abstract

The Art of Range is an educational podcast designed for rangeland practitioners, including ranchers, rangeland professionals, and researchers. Rangeland management is both art and science; the practice of any art depends on mastery of science, a body of knowledge. Rangeland science, as a truly integrative discipline that encompasses soils, plants, animals, people, and economics, invites lifelong learning and cross-cultural learning. True education is a science of relations; this requires communicating with depth and breadth. The structure of modern life in the developed world promotes thin communication, continuous partial attention, and personal and ideological isolation even as moderns are hyper-connected through digital communication devices. A conversational podcast permits deeper exploration of important topics and promotes synthesis and application to one's own physical and cultural context. The Art of Range podcast in 2019 explored a variety of specific topics, such as rangeland management fundamentals, ecosystem monitoring, targeted grazing, managing rangelands for resiliency to climate uncertainty and risk, and understanding and valuing ecosystem goods and services. © 2020 The Society for Range Management