Today’s Solutions: January 19, 2025

Education

Great minds lead to great solutions. Our education section features solutions and innovations directed at strengthening educational systems around the world.

young woman with gloves pots her plants

How to develop a green thumb in no time

When someone brings up the term “green thumb,” chances are certain people we know come to mind, but do we actually know what the term means? Here’s what plant experts want you to understand about what it means to have a green thumb. What it means to have a green thumb According to Read More...

New York skyline as seen from Brooklyn

New York City opens the country’s first safe injection site

Harm reduction strategies are gaining traction as a more effective way to quell the ever-growing opioid crisis. These strategies, like making clean needle exchanges available and decriminalizing drug possession, understand that criminalization alone will not reduce drug abuse, nor does it protect Read More...

Young brazilian girl sits cross legged outside with skateboard in her lap

Social Skate combats crime and violence in Brazil through skateboarding

A decade ago, 43-year-old skateboarder Sandro Soares, known to most as Testinha, together with his wife Leila, launched Social Skate, a charity-funded non-governmental organization that offers free skate lessons to young people in the Calmon Viana neighborhood in the city of Poa, on the outskirts Read More...

Mature Asian woman learns languge using gestures online

Research shows gestures take the guesswork out of learning a new language

It’s common knowledge that picking up a new language is easier as a child, while your brain is still flexible—but learning a foreign tongue as an adult is another story. Well, according to new research, adults who strive to speak a new language shouldn’t just fall back on the traditional Read More...

Siberian/Amur tiger leaps through the snow

Amur tiger pawprints spotted in Russia for the first time in half a century

As reported by the state-run Russian News Agency TASS, an exciting discovery was made last week: the first sighting of Amur tiger pawprints in the northeast Siberian republic of Sakha for the first time in half a century. Russia’s forest protection service spotted the pawprints along the right Read More...

box of unwanted and unused electronics ready for donation

Bristol's Electric Avenue pop-up shop tackles e-waste and consumerism

A new shop in Bristol called Electric Avenue pop-up is restoring unwanted electronics before giving them away this holiday season. Bristol’s residents can bring all types of items such as lamps, keyboards, and kitchen appliances to be cleaned, repaired, safety checked, and most importantly, Read More...

Senegal’s only circus tr

Senegal's only circus troupe helps homeless children get off the streets

Senegal has exactly one circus troupe: Sencirk—and it was founded by a former child beggar named Modou Touré. Before taking his place as ringmaster of his own circus, Touré, at the age of seven, was sent to a Quranic school. As punishment for learning the Islamic holy book too slowly, he was Read More...

a diverse group of four friends enjoy an outdoor social gathering in the winter

How to stay warm this winter during outdoor social gatherings

Temperatures are dipping and snowflakes are falling, but that doesn’t mean we have to say goodbye to our outdoor social gatherings. Plus, it might not always be safe to gather indoors, and everyone will have different comfort levels surrounding indoor gatherings. Even if you hate the cold, Read More...

Two sets of hands cut flowers for a bouquet

Bread and Roses uses floristry to empower refugee women in London

Rebuilding a life in a foreign country as a refugee is not an easy task. This is especially true for women, who often face more barriers than men as they are less likely to have had formal work experience and are not able to consistently attend language classes because of child-rearing obligations Read More...

Italian garden installation sh

Italian garden installation shows us how much CO2 trees store

Trees are the lungs of our planet—we know that trees are needed because they sequester dangerous CO2 emissions, but do we really know how much we depend on them to clean the air we breathe? We don’t see trees and plants absorbing emissions as we trek through the forest or sit in our gardens, so Read More...