Schools rarely teach climate change outside of science class. Teachers are changing that.

Natasha Piñon

September 11, 2020 |

Mashable |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Climate Change lessons are lacking even in science classes. This article identifies a variety of methods that educators can take to incorporate climate change into the classroom. Examples include things like incorporating climate change into non-science classes, creating interdisciplinary courses, and keeping the issue non-partisan. "They just want to be told the truth. They want to acknowledge that they're angry," Metzger-Carter said. "So, I tell them the truth. I tell them that their voices are way more powerful than mine. Then, I step out of the way."

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Why Pennsylvania is ground zero for mail-in voting debate

Christa Case Bryant

September 04, 2020 |

The Christian Science Monitor |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Pennsylvania

Learning from the failures of the 2020 Pennsylvania primary, where a sharp increase in mail-in voting led to a 2-week delay in certifying election results and many ballots being invalidated, officials introduced a bill to address those problems. Anticipating 3 million mail-in presidential election ballots, the bill would allow mailed in ballots to be opened before election day, which is currently prohibited. The bill would also notify voters and allow them to prove their identity in the case of signature mismatches. While officials are optimistic, there is not much time left to pass and implement the bill.

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Wisconsin voters should request ballots now for mail-in voting

Max Witynski

September 02, 2020 |

Wisconsin Watch |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Wisconsin

In the 2020 Wisconsin primary, increased mail-in voting overwhelmed the system and last-minute decisions to vote by mail led to voter confusion. This increased ballot rejections, which can systematically disenfranchise some populations. Learning from these failures, officials will send absentee voting guidelines and applications to 2.6 million voters and use barcodes to track ballots. Due to mail delivery issues, officials also publicly urged voters to request and submit ballots well before the deadline. Critics believe the state could do much more to make voting safe and easy during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Interest in Community Police Watch Training Soars as Courses Go Online

Meka Boyle

September 02, 2020 |

San Francisco Public Press |

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Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

Groups in the Bay Area that have successfully sought to have police disciplined for misconduct and won new police-accountability policies have turned their form of organized monitoring into a training platform for protesters nationwide. Responding to widespread Black Lives Matter protests, groups like Berkeley Copwatch and Wecopwatch use online education to teach hundreds of activists nationwide how to use videotape archives to systematically document abuses, and how to perform the work of legal observers at protests. Those activities are meant to act as deterrents to abuse.

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Lawmakers want to revive FDR's Depression-era "tree army" to help boost rural economies

Jason Nark

August 31, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia Media Network) |

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Response Location: United States

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a New Deal program to build outdoor recreation facilities, creating thousands of jobs during the Great Depression and building iconic state parks. Delaware programs, like the Senior Corps that enlists the help of people over 55, encourage civic engagement modeled after the CCC. Pennsylvania's Outdoor Corps hires young people to restore public lands over the summer. Congress introduced bills to revive CCC-like initiatives that could support rural economies hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, but environmental funding is not a priority of the current administration.

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More People With Felony Convictions Can Vote, but Roadblocks Remain

Lindsey Van Ness

August 31, 2020 |

Stateline |

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Response Location: United States

A longstanding campaign to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions led nine states since the 2016 presidential election to create or expand such rights, benefiting hundreds of thousands of potential voters. As of 2016, an estimated 6.1 million people were unable to vote because of a felony conviction. As that number has dropped, advocates have faced another obstacle: getting newly enfranchised people to register and vote. Nationwide, a number of advocacy and public-interest groups are racing to register the formerly incarcerated as the 2020 election approaches.

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Black Artists Find Ways to Make Their Voices Heard in Portland

Zachary Small

August 23, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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Response Location: United States, Portland, Oregon

A burst of creativity is helping Portland confront its racist histories. From murals appearing on boarded-up buildings, protest art on exhibit at art centers, and artists gathering downtown to display their work depicting clashes between protestors and federal troops, new opportunities have been created for the city's Black artists. Community groups are also connecting artists with affordable housing resources and memorializing displaced Black communities using murals, photography, and oral histories. While a good start, more work is needed to bring about structural changes.

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Courts rule

Emma Athena

August 20, 2020 |

Boulder Weekly |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Massachusetts

Almost half of U.S. states guarantee citizens’ rights to petition for ballot measures, but the coronavirus made gathering signatures in person infeasible. Massachusetts courts allowed electronic signatures, but other states have not approved virtual citizen initiative campaigns. Ballot initiatives allow citizens to advance solutions and enact structural changes without relying on support from elected officials. MA groups used DocuSign to gather 30,000 signatures to get a proposal for ranked choice voting on the ballot. Not all MA groups were able to quickly or successfully pivot to the e-signature process.

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Minnesota Freedom Fund Bails Out Those Who Can't Afford It

Bonita Gooch Jazzlyn Johnson

August 20, 2020 |

The Community Voice |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The Minnesota Freedom Fund spent its first four years as a modestly funded nonprofit that used donations to bail people out of jail, as a means of countering a cash bail system that critics see as unfair to people living in poverty and people of color. From 2016 to early 2020, it had a budget of $100,000 per year and bailed out 563 people. Protests against Minneapolis police misconduct produced a windfall of $30 million in donations. The fund has excess funds, beyond what's needed to bail out protesters, and faces some criticism that it has freed people accused of violence.

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This AI startup is tackling the coronavirus disinformation deluge

Sirin Kale

August 14, 2020 |

Wired |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United Kingdom

Logically is a fact-checking app that combines AI technology and human research to assess and label the truthfulness of news articles. The app has about 20,000 users after a soft launch in the UK, with a full launch planned for late 2020. The AI technology, a feature that makes the app unique, tries to match news claims to other sources and then human researchers take over to make a final judgment. The app has been busy fact-checking the extensive Covid-19 related misinformation. Some aspects, like technology glitches and slow fact-checking responses from researchers, still need to be worked out.

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