Social Science/biology/health science research topic

 An interesting process happens with trees and forests. Trees emit chemicals called phytoncides. When we breathe it in, it goes into the bloodstream and has remarkable effects on our bodies and health - phytoncide activates our immune system to produce more white blood cells of the natural killer (NK) variety. These can hunt down stress hormones, destroy virus-infected cells, and go after cancer cells in tumors!

Scientists have measured around a 50% increase in anti-cancer proteins after just 2 days hiking and being in forests, and this increase lasts nearly one month. Forest air lowers cortisol, blood pressure, and helps one de-stress by helping activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Fascinating! Again and again, we find Nature provides everything we need for good health, if we just recognize and accept it, and take advantage of the cycles that exist today through evolution. Life evolved that best fits into the natural environment and ecosystems that exist on earth, and forests are a big part of this. 

For research, the first thought that I had with this information is to do studies of cancer rates (overall and specific types) dependent on where people live - rural vs suburban vs urban. And break it down to longtime residents near or in forest compared to longtime residents living in desert environments and urban environments, etc. Are there statistically significant differences between cancer rates, blood pressure conditions, stress related issues, and so on? This is a challenging study to do since there are SO MANY possible factors that affect health that need to be considered - we would need to learn how statistics helps do this for complex systems and studies, but it could also help guide health policy and recommendations for different regions of the country. 

Just putting this out there! Physical experiments can also be done on any variety of plants, investigating what chemicals are released to their surroundings and if any of them are beneficial to human health. 

Global Teacher Prize: Nominate that special teacher!

 The Global Teacher Prize (GTP) has been around since 2015, and has as a goal to raise the status of the teaching profession and put it on the same level as other professions. It is known as the "Nobel Prize for Teachers," and offers a $1 million prize to the winner! 

Nominations for the 2027 GTP just opened, so Nominate that special teacher who has changed your life! Any K-12 teacher on the planet is eligible, so there will be many thousands of nominations of the top teachers from 80-100 countries. 

This is life-changing for a teacher. When I was chosen as one of the Top 50 Finalists in 2015, I had the opportunity to meet and partner with some of the great teachers on the planet. I am in touch and collaborate with dozens, and have met so many of them personally when we had four teacher summits in Dubai from 2016-2019. I have been a reader-judge for the selection process for several years, and I am only amazed and inspired as I read through applications from all over the world. 

Consider it, and nominate a teacher from your school career! 

This is the US contingent from 2018, in Dubai. 

Creative and simple solution to help new energy and climate change - solar-covered parking

 I got this off Facebook, the "Facts they don't teach you" page:

 France is transforming parking lots into clean energy generators, and it may be one of the most practical climate policies introduced in recent years.

Since July 2023, French law has required parking lots with 80 or more spaces to cover at least half of their surface area with solar canopies. Parking lots with more than 400 spaces must meet the requirement by 2026, while smaller qualifying lots have until 2028 to comply.

The idea is remarkably simple.

Instead of clearing farmland or natural habitats for new solar farms, use land that has already been paved. Parking lots spend most of the day exposed to direct sunlight, making them ideal locations for generating electricity without changing how the land is already used.

The potential is significant. Estimates suggest that if half of France's parking lots were equipped with solar canopies, they could provide between 6.75 and 11.25 gigawatts of installed solar capacity—roughly comparable to the generating capacity of around ten nuclear reactors.

The advantages extend well beyond electricity.

Solar canopies provide shade, reducing temperatures in large paved areas and helping to ease the urban heat island effect. They keep parked vehicles cooler during hot weather, protect them from intense sunlight, rain, and hail, and make parking more comfortable for drivers. Electric vehicle owners benefit as well, since cooler cars require less energy to run their air conditioning after being parked.

France is not the only country moving in this direction. South Korea has also introduced policies requiring solar installations on large public parking lots beginning in late 2025.

The opportunity is even greater elsewhere. With an estimated 800 million parking spaces, the United States has enormous untapped potential to generate clean electricity by making use of infrastructure that already exists, reducing the need to develop additional land for renewable energy projects.

Sometimes the most effective climate solutions are not the most complicated.

They simply make better use of the space we already have.

Source: Chester, M., Horvath, A., & Madanat, S. (2010). Environmental Research Letters

Summaries of Research on Achievement Gaps in K-12: What works?!

 In Evanston and most diverse communities around the country, academic achievement gaps, which lead to opportunity gaps, are prevalent and tend to be generational. Our Project Excite is one approach that had found these gaps can be reduced, and even eliminated, through a long-term, comprehensive approach that begins with working with students when they are young (Excite started with Black and Hispanic 3rd graders, for instance). 

As I am part of a new community-wide effort to try and get those same results on a grand scale, I used AI to do my own meta-study - a look at numerous research studies in the topic - and find the key ideas, concepts, models, and actions that are found to help attack the gaps. I'm pleased that our Excite model, which was run from 1999-2017, 'discovered' nearly all of this independently; published studies for Excite can be found here. 

Check out the meta-study results, which are loaded with ideas and best practices teachers of all grade levels can do to help their students, especially students of color and lower-income students, who are most likely to fall into the gaps. Lists of references are provided. 

1. Achievement gaps in general;  2. EELS role in fighting achievement gaps;  3. Effect of stereotype threat on gaps;  4. Effect and use of multiple intelligence models on gaps.  

EELS (SEL) for Teachers, by Teachers

 Since the COVID pandemic and shutdown of schools here and around the world, I've been fortunate to work with dozens of nationally and globally renowned teachers and educators to develop and promote the commonly called SEL skills - which I think really needs to be renamed and rebranded to what they really are, Everyday Essential Life Skills, or EELS - and provide all sorts of practical resources for teachers. 

ALL of the resources are linked through this Google Sheet, so if you are an educator or just generally interested, have at it and use/copy/modify what you like and can make use of with students!

Climate scientists start new website as a nonprofit!

 Good news for science, and more importantly, the world - scientists who were fired from NOAA, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have replaced the dismantled climate.gov site with a new climate.us site. The current administration, who openly and often calls climate change a "hoax", and has cut funding and fired some of the world's best climate scientists for political reasons, has put a massive obstacle in the way of nearly the entire rest of the world when it comes to doing something about climate change. We should be thankful to the actual scientists and experts in the field for doing this as a nonprofit, and mostly as on a volunteer basis! 

GO TO CLIMATE.US for all sorts of data, analyses, and discussions of what's going on with the planet!