THE RESPONSE FREE!
Weekly email with three solutions stories illustrating responses that work, pivoting off the latest news moments.
SolutionsU® connects you to solutions stories about responses to the world’s challenges.
Featured
Read featured
stories & collections
Teaching Collection
UN Global Goal 5: Gender Equality
7 Stories
3 external links
Achieving gender parity is a necessary precondition for the UN Global Goals. Providing women and...
created by
Paul Niebrzydowski
Solutions Journalism Network
Educator
Ed tech can transform physical education classes, too
https://hechingerreport.org/ed-tech-can-transform-physical-education-classes-too
Tara Garcia Mathewson
The Hechinger Report
21 November 2019
Text / Under 800 Words
Where does technology fit into a gym class? One physical education teacher uses an online platform to let students track their fitness progress throughout the semester and ensure that all students stay engaged throughout class periods when gym space is limited.
In Peoria, Green Infrastructure As a Path to Social Equity
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/in-peoria-green-infrastructure-as-a-path-to-social-equity
Emily Nonko
Next City
20 November 2019
Text / 800-1500 Words
Green infrastructure provides a return on investment and improves the quality of life in a community. In Peoria, Illinois, the city’s Public Works Department has piloted several green infrastructure initiatives with the help of funding of a Bloomberg Philanthropies grant. Projects like the Well Farm at Voris Field, zero runoff streets are proving successful at capturing sewer runoff and creating economic value, while the youth volunteer PeoriaCorps are helping make the projects community-based.
With Paper Monuments, New Orleanians Draft The City's History Themselves
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/with-paper-monuments-new-orleanians-draft-the-citys-history-themselves
Zoe Sullivan
Next City
19 November 2019
Text / 800-1500 Words
Bringing the community into conversations about commemoration opens new ways to present public history. The Paper Monuments project in New Orleans asked residents to draw monuments that they would like to see replace the four Confederate monuments removed in the city. The project brought organizations like the New Orleans Arts Council and New Orleans Public library together with community members to re-imagine new narratives, installations, and representations of local history.
Mozambique's newly empowered rangers, courts catch up with poachers, loggers
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/mozambiques-newly-empowered-rangers-courts-catch-up-with-poachers-loggers
Fred Kockott
Mongabay
19 November 2019
Text / 800-1500 Words
Protecting forests requires collaboration between conservation groups and government authorities. In Mozambique, the Peace Parks Foundation is working with support of the Mozambique government to protect the Zinave National Park from illegal poaching and logging. By increasing patrols and tightening the laws surrounding illegal logging, Mozambique’s government has made conservation work in the area much more effective.
Colleges adding second language sections to English-instructed courses
https://hechingerreport.org/what-happens-when-college-students-discuss-lab-work-in-spanish-philosophy-in-chinese-or-opera-in-italian
Laura Pappano
The Hechinger Report
19 November 2019
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Food studies in Portuguese. History in German. To address declining enrollment in second-language courses and "combat the notion that language learning belongs only in language classes," more U.S. colleges are offering language-specific sections for classes traditionally taught in English.
Indigenous-wildlife ranger collaboration conserves rare Australian rainforests
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/indigenous-wildlife-ranger-collaboration-conserves-rare-australian-rainforests
Nick Rodway
Mongabay
18 November 2019
Text / 800-1500 Words
Revegetation and fire management practices are helping to preserve Australia’s biodiversity. In Western Australia, collaborative efforts between Environs Kimberley, an environmental NGO, and local rangers from the First Nation communities of the Dampier Peninsula are working to document, conserve, and manage the region’s monsoon vine thickets (MVT). As part of the Kimberley Nature Project (KNP), local rangers employ traditional methods like seasonal burns to allow for revegetation and to reduce the threat of larger bushfires.
This single shipping container can start powering a small renewable grid in less than a day
https://www.fastcompany.com/90431566/this-single-shipping-container-can-start-powering-a-small-grid-in-less-than-a-day
Adele Peters
FastCompany
18 November 2019
Text / 800-1500 Words
Solar microgrids can improve community resilience to natural disasters by quickly restoring power. California-based startup, BoxPower, has developed an easy-to-install solar panels, packaged in a cargo shipping container. Housing the units in a shipping container allows for easy transport to disaster zones, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and to communities in California left without power due to wildfires.
Holland Aims to Bring Back Its Starry Nights
https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/11/dark-sky-night-stars-netherlands-light-pollution-map-nacht/601846
Sophie Knight
CityLab
18 November 2019
Text / 800-1500 Words
To address the harm - both to human psychology as well as natural ecosystems - of artificial light, The Netherlands calls on its citizens to turn their lights off and feel the effects of a natural darkness. The awareness of negative consequences of artificial light has helped residents reduce light consumption, though turning the lights off is an uphill battle with international corporate powerhouses.
How a new grain could help combat climate change
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-new-grain-could-help-combat-climate-change
Megan Thompson
Mark Bittman
Melanie Saltzman
PBS NewsHour
16 November 2019
Broadcast TV News / 5-15 Minutes
Planting perennial grains for human consumption retains more nutrients in the soil, prevents soil erosion, and traps carbon. Farmers and researchers have been working to develop a commercially viable perennial grain, known as Kernza. Today, business pioneers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area are finding ways to introduce Kernza into consumer markets, including Kernza beer.
Making a More Democratic Economy, One Revolving Loan Fund at a Time
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/making-a-more-democratic-economy-one-revolving-loan-fund-at-a-time
Oscar Perry Abello
Next City
14 November 2019
Text / 800-1500 Words
Advancing the model of worker ownership requires expanding access to loans for cooperative businesses. In California, Berkeley City Council recently adopted changes to its Loan Fund for small businesses, allowing businesses without a CEO to apply for a loan. The City Council and Loan Administration board approved an idea put forth by the Sustainable Economics Law Center (SELC), which will permit coops to appoint a panel of owners to serve as guarantors of a loan, in lieu of a single CEO.
The world is full of people and institutions working to advance change. Yet, these emerging ideas can be difficult to find...until now.
SolutionsU® identifies, vets, and tags high-quality solutions journalism stories in one searchable database - the Solutions Story Tracker.
SolutionsU® features stories produced by 1,400+ journalists from 700+ news outlets, featuring 148+ countries, and growing every day. The stories cover a wide variety of people, communities, and institutions working to advance change around the globe.
Solutions stories illustrate the real struggles in social change, going beyond inspiration to provide evidence and insights about how social change really works.
SolutionsU® is a project of the Solutions Journalism Network: a nonprofit organization that seeks to rebalance the news, providing readers with critical reporting on society's problems and stories that explain how individuals, institutions, and communities are responding.
“SolutionsU® has unlimited potential: for students developing project ideas, in providing leads for field research on solving intractable social problems, and for helping educators with well-vetted and organized teaching content and materials.”
Robert Lyon, Assistant Professor
NYU Stern School of Business
“My students are definitely more engaged and more inspired. They connect these stories to their own lives and many of them express interest in wanting to be more involved, perhaps by volunteering or donating to organizations that are featured in the articles.”
Judit Torok, Founding Director of Pratt's Center for Teaching and Learning
“When [my students] learned that a community already exists that they can be a part of, and that they can learn from, that made all the difference. Solutions journalism stories can help deliver this powerful message.”
Marcy O'Neil, Assistant Professor
Michigan State University
“A great tool to prime the moral imagination. It enhances the ability to imagine the world that does not yet exist.”
David Bornstein, Co-Founder
Solutions Journalism Network
“SolutionsU® is a lifeline for professors and students seeking to move beyond a problem mindset and understand how people are solving the thorny problems we face. Students leave inspired, realizing that they can make a difference.”
Jay Friedlander, Sharpe-McNally Chair of Green and Socially Responsible Business
College of the Atlantic