Teaching & Learning
Education propels change. Stay up to date on the latest educational developments near you and around the world from preschool to post-grad. Here, you'll find out why equitable quality education is essential for fostering healthy and resilient societies.
10 Reasons to pick up a paintbrush: Good for your heart and soul
The cold winter weather combined with continuing concern for our health and safety during the pandemic may mean that many of us are opting to spend more time indoors these days. To keep boredom from taking hold, try to see this as an opportunity to delve into some fun hobbies that are not only Read More...
Samaritans pilot a project aimed at suicide prevention in UK
UK-based suicide prevention charity Samaritans has teamed up with Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge to create the nation’s first digital-only suicide prevention support program. The idea behind offering digital-only support is to accommodate the communication preferences of anyone in Read More...
Everything you need to know about California’s new composting law
Food waste is a huge problem to tackle, which is why we’ve shared numerous stories with tips on how you can help reduce your own personal food waste. To that end, we’ve suggested that people re-organize their pantry and refrigerator, download apps that connect consumers with grocery items that Read More...
Science Moms are on a mission to spread science-based climate optimism
When we feel overwhelmed and hopeless, many of us turn to our mothers or the mother figures we have in our lives for comfort and encouragement. As adults the challenges we face are much bigger than a scraped knee, with wider problems like climate change possibly luring us into despair. Luckily, Read More...
NHS app helps UK families curb the record rise in childhood obesity
Since the beginning of the pandemic, surveys show that parents in the UK have been allowing their children to snack on more unhealthy food, which likely contributes to the record rise in obesity among 10- to 11-year-olds across the nation. Other factors include lockdowns, school closures, and Read More...
Empowered activism is cultivating a marketable skill - A dispatch from Colombia
“Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.” – Madeleine L’Engle By Jackie Gilbert We all catch ourselves making remarks like “I’m starving” or “we’re dying of hunger”, but fortunately for most of us in my middle-class Read More...
China’s “artificial sun” fusion reactor breaks yet another record
The Chinese Academy of Sciences has exciting news about its fusion reactor that it recently shared in a release. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion reactor successfully sustained a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 1,056 seconds, effectively Read More...
Create a refuge for endangered native plant species in your own garden
Here at the Optimist Daily, we never tire of sharing stories that help garden-lovers and green thumbs continue cultivating their gardening habits. Gardening, or even just spending time in a garden, doesn’t just offer people several physical and mental health benefits, but gardens can potentially Read More...
Doctors transplant pig's heart into human patient for the first time ever
A remarkable milestone in medicine was reached by doctors in Maryland who have successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig’s heart into a human patient in a do-or-die situation. David Bennet, a 57-year-old handyman, was the recipient of this life-saving operation. He knew that the Read More...
Study: Goldfish can be taught to operate a vehicle
This interesting study, carried out by scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, looked at how capable a fish out of water really is. In an effort to understand animals' navigational capabilities the team used a goldfish as a subject, teaching it to drive a Fish Operated Vehicle Read More...