Our friends at PBS News Student Reporting Labs are back with another season of “On Our Minds,” their award-winning podcast about the teenage experience.
PBS News Student Reporting Labs is a hands-on journalism training program for young people and their educators. Each season is hosted by two high school students, and episodes are co-created with teens and include segments produced by high school and college student producers across the country.
We were big fans of “On Our Minds” last season, especially its prompt to teens: “Who Inspires You?” For high school students Marium Zahra and Aruja Misra from El Paso, Texas, it was their school librarian, who is beloved on campus for his outgoing personality and for being a proponent of reading banned books. We invited Zahra and Misra to join us on our “How I Library” podcast to discuss their experiences on the show and their school librarian. It was an illuminating conversation with some incredible young minds.
The new “On Our Minds” season—the sixth!—is an audio road trip that explores what it’s like to be young in every corner of the U.S. through hyperlocal stories about cities, towns, and neighborhoods. Hosted by Helena Ortiz, a sophomore at Rockingham Early College High School in Wentworth, North Carolina, and Zack Castruita, a senior at Samueli Academy in Santa Ana, California (pictured above), the season premiered last month and rolled out of the gate with student contributors reporting from Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, and Indiana.
Where will they go next? Tune in and find out!
Check out the trailer for the new “On Our Minds” season below. You can find new episodes every Wednesday wherever you listen to podcasts.
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