A New Generation of Students Is Teaching Us How to Reduce E-Waste

The true prize in education is a recipe that vaults low-income students into the upper echelons of achievement. A blue-collar town in Massachusetts says the key is something as basic as more time.

Several private colleges are considering an alternative to traditional student grants and loans - Income Share Agreements (ISAs) - in which colleges or outside capital sources provide loans to students with the promise that students will pay a percentage of their income with no interest for a set period of time after graduation. Critics argue that the arrangement will simply add to existing student debt and favor students in higher-paying math and science majors, programs in which minorities lack proportionate representation. Can colleges adjust the financing model to take into account these concerns?

Collaboration between the Hmong community, researchers, and park authorities in northern Thailand has allowed them to work together to restore the forest in Doi Suthep-Pui National Park. Between 1997 and 2013, they used assisted regeneration to restoring 33 hectares of forest, which also increased the area’s natural flora and fauna. Because of their efforts, their approach is being implemented in tropical forests around the world, including Cambodia, Madagascar, and Tanzania.

A community in North Amsterdam tackles the issue of rising water levels head on by building homes that can float. The houses are built to include solar energy grids using blockchain so neighbors can share electricity, and the structures rise and fall with the ebbs and flows of flooding.

Across the world, TreeSisters is partnering with local organizations to help reforestation efforts. The nonprofit is centered on bolstering local, community-based, and usually women-led initiatives in countries like Kenya and Madagascar. The organization cites the fact that women are most often the ones interacting with the environment, and so raising awareness and taking action in such a gendered way can leverage the most impact.

At both the individual and corporate levels, action is being taken to eliminate the use of plastics. While many people have turned their attention to decreasing their own use of single-use plastics, many say that’s not enough. Instead, corporations bear the responsibility in creating and managing large-scale systems that eliminate the high use of non-reusable plastics.

In Nashville, the public library system and metropolitan public school district are working together to ensure students have access to all the educational resources they need. To start, every student ID doubles as a library card.

Using AI technology, home address data, and algorithms, the Metro21 Institute at Carnegie Mellon was able to find the best school bus routes to deliver school meals to students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The solution wouldn’t have worked with the help of a community of partners, leaders, and volunteers. “It truly has taken a village.”

Rochester School District previously used hotspots on buses to help students traveling to extracurricular events, but once the pandemic showed how many families were struggling to stay virtually connected, the buses were turned into traveling hotspots for different neighborhoods. The district was able to get all but 20% of its student population connected and is looking for more ways to minimize the digital divide.

The Chicago Tool Library allows members to borrow a wide variety of tools through a pay-what-you-want-membership model.