Education
Great minds lead to great solutions. Our education section features solutions and innovations directed at strengthening educational systems around the world.
People can get a free stay on this Swedish island to work on their creative ideas
Have you ever dreamed of escaping to an island and throwing yourself into a creative project, uninterrupted and undisturbed by the outside world? Well, your dream could very well come true, thanks to a Swedish man named Fredrik Haren. Haren is the owner of Ideas Island, a 7,000 square meter Read More...
“To Infinity and Beyond” - The Power of Imagination
Science Fiction, Otherworldly Aspirations & Innovative Teamwork By Kristy Jansen July 20, 2019 was the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s first small step on another world, and humanity’s symbolic “giant leap” into the future. In the intervening decades, we have learned how to Read More...
Low-income students to get free education at University of Texas-Austin in 2020
Beyond student debts, there’s a massive problem with charging university students up to $65,000 for a year’s worth of college education: by doing so, you exclude talented students from the lower end of the economic spectrum. And while the US is still a long, long distance away from matching the Read More...
Scientists are fighting to liberate the world’s academic research from paywalls
Science has amassed so much valuable knowledge that humanity can use, and yet, a huge chunk of that knowledge is owned by a few corporations who keep it behind paywalls. One of those corporations is Elsevier, which owns around 3,000 academic journals and withholds some 18 percent of all the Read More...
Check out photos from the recent sunset solar eclipse
A solar eclipse happens once in a blue moon. Oh wait, that’s not right. Let’s be more specific: solar eclipses take place approximately every 18 months somewhere on Earth, although they only recur in any given place once every 360 to 410 years. The last solar eclipse happened just last week, Read More...
Doctors in Montreal are prescribing patients with a visit to a fine arts museum
They say art has the power to heal, and in Montreal, doctors are taking this idea very literally. Through a partnership with The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), doctors in Montreal are now able to prescribe patients with a visit to the fine arts museum. The partnership provides doctors with an Read More...
Grow algae in a beautiful way within your home with this micro-farm
There are a bunch of reasons why algae is amazing. First of all, algae is one of the most efficient carbon dioxide scrubbers in the air, “with 10 times greater CO2 fixation than terrestrial plants.” On top of that, adding algae to your diet can contribute to a rich, well-balanced nutritional Read More...
The Revolution That Started it All: 1776
In today’s special edition of The Optimist Daily, we are celebrating revolutions! That’s because of the 4th of July, the day the Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain. Right? Well, not so fast. While it’s widely believed that July 4, 1776, was the day America Read More...
This photographer is trying to restore some calm amidst the climate crisis
For many years, world-renowned photographer Chris Jordan was focused on the “underbelly of mass consumption”, capturing iconic, yet disturbing photos of birds dying from eating plastic. But recently Jordan has started to change his approach. If people are bombarded with messages about Read More...
This is how the world’s coldest city celebrates Summer
If you think your home city gets cold, think again. In Yahutsk, the regional capital of Russia’s Republic of Sakha, the winter lows can drop to a bone-chilling -70°F, making it the coldest city in the world. But while the winter temperatures can be brutal, the summers can be quite pleasant, with Read More...