This week on Arizona illustrated what has farmers in Yuma, Arizona, prepare for an uncertain future The tumor grows.

90% of the winter vegetables in the United States Fine revolution.

Shakespeare's words continue to be relevant Shakespeare made a point of saying every step Hamlet took was potentially lethal.

One Visually impaired students learn aerospace engineering by touch nobody should be left behind.

If you want to learn, we have a responsibility to provide that opportunity.

and memories from amount The views get more and more spectacular as you get higher and higher.

It's like a hot air balloon ride without the hot air balloon.

Welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara and we're coming to you from a familiar place or near the base of Centennial Peak or a mountain as it's called.

You know, in recent years, the city has restricted car access up the mountain to make it safer for hikers and bicyclists to use that road That iconic up on the top of the mountain was built by University of Arizona students way back in 1916.

As you see in these photos from special collections.

But human history here dates back more than 4000 years.

Indigenous people once grew crops year round on the banks of the Santa Cruz River until the river dried up from overuse in the early 1900s.

Now, farmers in Yuma, Arizona may be facing a similar threat In the winter that area produces up to 90% of the lettuce and leafy greens consumed in the United States.

And that production depends on water from the Colorado River which is experiencing a prolonged drought.

Our producers spoke with local farmers about preparations being made for an uncertain future [music] (Jeff) The Colorado River collectively supports about 40 million people and about 5 million acres of cropland.

And it covers portions of seven states and two countries.

Our livelihoods depend on the Colorado River living in this desert southwest.

(Cory) Yuma grows 90% of the winter vegetables in the United States from the second week of November to about the first second week of April.

We provide all your leafy greens, your lettuce, romaine, your broccoli, spinach, and things of that nature for that time period of the year.

(Jeff) There are three things that really fit in beautifully agriculturally here to give it its potential, its capacity.

One, of course, is the climate.

We're 150 feet above sea level at about 32 degrees north latitude.

So we can basically grow crops year round.

Secondly, the soil resources are incredible, really.

You look at these alluvial valleys that have basically been deposited over eons of time by the deposits from the Colorado River.

And then third, of course, the water.

The main stem of the Colorado River was right here.

So it was a logical place to begin.

If the people could handle the heat and go do the hard work of clearing and developing land this quickly became one of the more productive areas of the southwest.

Still is today.

(Cory) When my father first started farming lettuce and romaine, they flood irrigated the furrows for 72 hours straight, and that's what they used to germinate the seedling.

We've gone away from that practice many, many years ago, and we're now using sprinkler technology.

(Jeff) Situation on the Colorado River that's a product of over 20 years of drought.

The megadrought has been now declared by some climatologists saying it's the worst southwestern megadrought in over 1200 years.

The consequence of that is that the reservoirs, the major storage reservoirs in the Colorado River, Lake Powell, which controls the water for the upper basin and Lake Mead for the lower basin, are declining in their reservoir levels.

Those reservoirs are both pretty much full around the year 2000, just a little over 20 years ago.

And this drought has been such that, well, we're taking out more water than is going in in the watershed.

And as that water declines, it's been recognized that we better do something pretty quick.

(Meghan) Most of the Yuma area districts have higher priority rates.

And so when we're seeing these first set of cut backs, our districts aren't really impacted by that.

As the levels of Lake Mead get lower, then obviously that threat of seeing a cut back here in our area gets bigger.

For now.

I think the biggest concern is just is the level of Lake Mead going to fall further?

And what is being done to try to prop that level up?

If you start to eliminate that and you start to take away that water and they can't produce as much, obviously that's going to have an impact on what's available in the store.

Our ability to provide food for ourselves as a country.

(Cory) Being one of the only areas to grow leafy greens and dependent 100% on the Colorado River water.

We do have to do our best and be proactive in reducing the amount of water that we use and then the things such as laser leveling, GPS control.

There's technologies now that we're using and there will be technologies in the future that we can look at that will help us reduce our usage.

[indistinct chatter] (Jeff) We're in Yuma, Arizona at the campus of Arizona Western College.

This is where we conduct every year the Southwest Ag Summit, which is one of the largest conferences of this type in Arizona the desert southwest, and certainly is the epicenter of our conference and our educational programs here in southwest Arizona along the lower Colorado River Valley.

It's a nice joint venture between the agricultural industry and the University of Arizona coming together and forming this educational and fact based learning opportunity.

It's a couple thousand people usually register for the the three day event, this is the culmination of the of the conference or the summit right here today.

There's been field demonstrations and equipment demonstrations and a number of other activities.

(Jeff presentation) very, very different water holding capacities from all the way from about an inch of water, per foot of soil for a sand to about two inches in the optimal case for a lot of our sandy or silty loams.

(Jeff) I directed a session that was dealing with the Colorado River water shortage and agricultural implications specifically.

We're making an effort to communicate to people in this community what the situation is and what the implications are for today and what the future looks like for us very likely.

(Jeff presentation) how can this head then accomplish my goal for this particular irrigation (Cory) We treat water as any other input item in a crop.

The least amount of water we can use the more profitable we'll be.

So we've been driven for years to reduce those rates of water we're using to the bare minimum just to get the crop off.

We all recognize that we're in a long term drought.

We're going to be looking at more and more technology to reduce the water we're using.

This story was supported by a grant from the Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative based at the University of Colorado, Boulder's Center for Environmental Journalism.

For more on this story and in-depth coverage on water in the state of Arizona, look for Arizona Public Media's brand new podcast, Tapped, which will be available in mid-July.

The tragedy of Hamlet.

Prince of Denmark was written by Shakespeare around 1600 and is just as relevant today as it was back then.

This year, local director Kevin Black staged a multimedia performance at Pidgeon Palace Arts.

And the play is set in modern society, in a world governed by artificial intelligence systems.

And while technology has changed a lot as you'll see, the forces governing human behavior have pretty much stayed the same (Narrator) William Shakespeare's famous work Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is a tragedy written around the year 1600.

The central themes of the play are existential questions, mental illness and betrayal.

Director Kevin Black sets Hamlet in modern society that's ruled by artificial intelligence systems, interrogating our relationships to technology and one another.

(David) Come!

Bring me his drink!

Anything happen before that?

No This pearl is thine!

(Kevin) Our sovereign.

What a gift.

Unbelievable.

Shakespeare made a point of saying that every step Hamlet took was a potentially lethal one because his uncle knew Hamlet was not on his side.

What that meant in Shakespeare's version was a ton of spying.

So that's a 400 year old theme in the piece.

But that's not really the only thing I'm asking us to take a little longer look at, but using media to interrogate media and how is a lot of really ramped up reshaping of information coming through the Internet.

(Kevin as Hamlet) An unprofitable to me seem all the uses of this world Fie on't!

Oh fie fie!

Tis an unweeded garden that grows things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.

(David) I think Shakespeare was writing about humanity within certain constraints, emotional constraints, socio political constraints,economic constraints.

And what we do in that case.

Humanity under certain pressures will do terrifying things.

We're seeing ourselves in this older piece through kind of a patina of contemporary dress, and we're looking at that way to see these issues that apply to us then, now and forever.

(Nikki) Very similar characters you're seeing played out in real life, what's going on in the Ukraine and the political threat to their democracy.

And I think in our election six years ago, there's similarities between Trump and Claudius.

Both don't care about the rule of law and are more concerned about their own political power.

(David) It's so easy to manufacture the narrative of evil.

We're good over here.

Over there is evil.

I mean, we're seeing that, unfortunately, fallout on our cameras, 24 seven now.

That just reinforces your own narrative.

So the ideas are pretty eternal.

And you can put these ideas of totalitarianism, of the authoritarian state, of corrupt leadership, of mental illness, and they'll always continue to apply.

(Nikki) That's what's frightening, is that history does repeat itself.

And if you're not familiar with the past, you're going to repeat it, you know?

And it's like we're seeing this all over again.

(Zelensky)The question for us now is to be or not to be.

Oh, no, this Shakespearean question for 15 days, this question could have been asked.

But now I can give you a definitive answer.

It's definitely yes to be.

(Kevin) The fact that President Zelensky quoted Hamlet to Parliament is pretty strong testament to how the piece still tragically speaks to us in moments like that, when a president is desperately trying to hold onto his country and keep his people safe and there's an existential threat, and to find that the way to address that publicly is through what Shakespeare was writing.

It's very powerful to realize that those words work... Now.

(Kevin as Hamlet) Now, the wise men know well enough what monsters you make of us.

to a nunnery go and quickly too.

Farewell.

(Kevin) There was a word that was used a lot in Shakespeare's day, and actually it was considered a sort of a diagnosis.

It was called melancholy.

And that probably parallels pretty thoroughly nowadays with our modern diagnosis of depression.

(Nikki as Ophelia) God have mercy on their souls.

And of all Christian souls, (Nikki) The topics of mental health often come up throughout the play.

I think our society, we still shy away from that or we ignore it.

And that goes back into media and what we're watching constantly on our phones.

It's polluting the minds of these young people as well.

(Kevin) This sort of rolling, continuing refinement and complexity of data driven technology, we're also sharing a ton of information about ourselves, and that gets to be very dicey because who's on the other end?

(David as Claudius) The King drinks to Hamlet!

(David) States, kingships, countries, religions, any group that needs to organize around, you know, American politics.

And the whole comment years ago with, well, we have alternative facts.

It's difficult because eventually you are being fed this thing designed to corral you into one way of thinking (Video Narrator) and a real tribute to the unification of our sovereign has brought to the nation.

He's a nation builder.

A lover of the people.

(Kevin) It's definitely a very intense family story.

And generationally and and their struggles to try to come together in a very, very inhospitable environment.

In another way, we're dealing with things that you might think about actually when you get a bit older, which is what is this all about?

[laughs] Why?

Why are we here?

And I think he's got a number of moments on stage where he's not only grappling with the difficulties of the very lethal environment he's in, but simply like, should I stay or should I go?

To be or not to be?

One of the reasons we keep going back to that play is it's wildly entertaining, but it also it's not very generous with answers.

The play asks you questions and you start working your way through a series of thoughts, and it's a picture of people having to work their way through isolation.

And what do you do?

You start wondering about existence and coming to some conclusions.

Traditionally, it's been difficult for visually impaired students to learn about aerospace engineering, because understanding the mechanics of machine parts often requires seeing how they move.

But Dr. Kavon Hazell associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona, hopes to change that (Kavan) I'm one of those people who really believes nobody should be left behind.

If you want to learn, we have a responsibility to provide that opportunity.

Traditionally they have this impression that engineering is not for the people we cannot see.

Wrong.

We have to change that.

If we as a community don't make those educational tools available to them, they are always feel alien about the engineering.

(student 1) I don't want it to touch the edge of this.

(student 2) Oh, yeah.

As long as you're pegs in then, I'm just gonna take them out.

Yeah.

(Kavan) I was sitting in an airplane one day and I was telling myself, How am I supposed to teach the fly mechanism to the person who cannot see?

I assembled a team and we start to build a wind tunnel which is customized so they can understand the viscous, drag, lift mechanism.

(student) It will be very loud.

[loud fan turning on] (Kavan) We also had some noise associated with the wind.

And when the wind comes in, change the angle of attack.

You have different lift and how we can land also.

They could completely hold it, feel it and relate with the concept.

(Grad student) Okay.

So that's the drag portion.

And then we also have a lift force.

(Kavan) One of the students was working in my lab.

When she learned about my passion to develop educational tools.

She said, I have a blind roommate.

(Valeria) I came here because my friend, she got me into more into aerospace and mechanical engineering.

You can feel the other symmetrical letters.

(student) Do you think that makes a big difference?

(Valeria) It's easier to read this type of one.

Because I'm legally blind.

To understand something, I need to touch it.

Or have a motion that directs me to it.

(Sahand) Kavan looks at the social impacts of engineering work.

And that's something that I wasn't exposed before.

For my Ph.D. Kavan was my advisor, and I had a conversation with him, and I didn't know about the limitations in education for visually impaired students.

So when he mentioned that, I was like, Oh, that's great.

We can work something that has led to my work and connects to your work as well.

We picked this robot for educational purpose because we have this shell around the system because we have this, it's safe and people can use it without getting harm and they understand all these physics that is behind the system.

(Kavan) We can explain the stability of the helicopter's flight, hovering, pitch and all this beautiful concept that we teach in the Aerospace Engineer Department.

We could bring these type of lessons to the people who never had the opportunity before.

(Isaac) There's more than just a visual learner.

There's auditory learners and there's tactile learners.

And so I think that it's important to be able to really focus on bringing as much inclusion into play when demonstrating and or teaching concepts as complex as engineering and or other concepts within the STEM fields.

(Kavan) Another very exciting project that we are involved is we are very lucky.

We have a very good and comprehensive college of optical science.

So my team and I, we are working with Dr. Nasser Peyghambarian to develop some smart glasses which has an onboard sensor for navigate the environments.

(Nasser) This is sort of an example that the blind can be told what's going on.

The technology that is currently in use in the self-driving cars by but on a person.

(Kavan) we are sensing the objects around and we can have an audio feedback to say what I am seeing right now.

Just imagine a student that has those glasses as well.

They can navigate to the campus with no need to help that build up the confidence that we need to see the people who are not like us.

(Student) The button on your right hand.

If you push up.

(Valeria) Okay.

(Sahand) A lot of engineers like me understand that there is this impact that you could have socially in people's life.

(Kavan) It's very warm heartening when I see next generation, when I see them, they have the same passion as I do to develop things that doesn't exist for the people who really need it.

Education really matters.

Things happen in the university.

You cannot have a technology.

You cannot have a health.

You cannot have anything without having the right education in the right place.

(Sahand) I see the difficulties and I see there's a solution, That's basically the purpose of engineering if it could make someone's life easier.

I mean, what's better than that?

(guitar music) - [Woman] We're driving and she's like huh.

Look at, mommy, mommy, the A.

There's a big giant A.

- [Girl] It was this big, (laughter) this big.

- [Woman] Pretty big.

- [Girl] It's big.

- [Man] What do you want to do?

You want to go up there?

- [Girl] All the way.

- [Woman] All the way.

- To the top.

(laughs) - [Man] Higher than Tucson.

- [Woman] (chuckles) Yep.

My dad used to bring our whole cross country team up here.

He'd drop us off at the bottom and then we'd have to run up.

And this was kind of like our gift at the end.

(kids yelling) And we got to go up there and climb to the top.

It draws you to it.

You know.

You can't help but want to climb it when you, (chuckles) when you, when you're here.

- [Man] I was always here as a kid with the family.

We used to always come up here, and just eat food actually, and just hang out.

(string music) - [Woman] ASU students came and like painted it and stuff.

And there was like this whole big fuss over the A right there, so I had to come and see for myself.

But now I just like the view of the city.

This is someplace I would come not to reflect on a day, but to more like, forget about the day.

- [Man] I got good memories, and then I got bad memories too.

(wind) I brought my son up here right after school so he can have some fun.

You know, we were grooving to some music.

(chuckles) We had 50 Cent, we had Tyga, we had just some feeling music to enjoy the night that we're in.

My son right now, I'm with him right now.

I'm building a great memory.

(upbeat horn music) - [Boy] I like the sunset, and all the buildings, and the lights.

It's just really nice to look at.

- [Man] I stayed at that motel on the second floor and stood on the balcony to watch the fireworks from over here.

And it's hard for me to recognize, because a lot of things have happened in 25 years.

(chuckles) I remember empty fields.

Now, there are buildings down there.

- [Woman] I've lived here for many, many years.

I usually bring friends who are visiting from out of town, because it's, it's the one place, where they can see the whole scope of Tucson.

- [Man] Traveling south to like Kentucky, Tennessee, things like that, you know, you get into foothills, before you get in the mountains.

And here, everything is flat, and then, pow, there's a mountain right in your face.

- [Woman] Oh, it's beautiful.

I mean Michigan is all flat.

We don't have mountains, so it's, definitely, a breathtaking view.

- [Man] The views get more and more spectacular as you get higher and higher.

It's like a hot air balloon ride without the hot air balloon.

- [Woman] I usually go to the hut.

That's over there.

I just like to sit and escape school.

(chuckles) - [Man] This one time, we had come up here around eight o'clock, sun was still going down, it was just so nice.

(soft music) Clouds were looking white, yellow, maroon, and you could definitely take a picture that day, post it somewhere online, if they weren't from Tucson, they were definitely talking about the sunset.

(soft music) Oh, it's full of Tucson pride.

You see a mountain, you know that's Tucson.

(soft music) - [Woman] Well, my grandson is visiting, from the east coast.

- [Man] Yep.

And I, I just was thinking about a nice place that we could go before I brought nana out to dinner.

And nana has lived here for, what, 15 years?

- [Woman] Yeah, now.

- [Man] About 15 years, and she had never been up here, so I thought - No.

Why not?

- [Woman] So, here we are.

(chuckles) Gorgeous, gorgeous sunset.

- [Man] Yeah.

Before we go, here's a sneak peek at a story we're working on And a black hole is a warping in spacetime that is so strong that not even light can escape from it.

And you can go quite close to a black holes.

But if you cross that virtual surface that we call the event horizon, then you'll never be able to come out from it.

So when we asked ourselves, which are the best black holes to take a picture of, only two of them crossed the limit.

One of them is the black hole in the center of our galaxy because it's the closest.

And the other is the biggest black hole and that is the black hole in the center of the.

Like what you see on Arizona Illustrated.

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Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara and we'll see you next week.