New college-prep IB program could be offered to technical students – The Washington Post

This week I went to Pacific Beach Middle School to video IB portfolio presentations. I loved walking around the school and seeing all the values that are posted in a creative manner in the school hallways. Jennifer Sims does a great job at coordinating this program! Look at what this high school is trying!

New college-prep IB program could be offered to technical students – The Washington Post.

Chicago Meatpacking Plant turned Vertical Farm

This is among the top-ten things I would like to be a part of in my next life…needs no commentary!

Street Yoga is COOL!

So– just a note on how I found the Street Yoga Site.. For all of you who enjoy stories of wandering and finding gems in the sea of internet babble..

A local yoga instructor who I very much admire (Katie Brauer) sent out an email about becoming an official partner with WANDERLUST and I decided that’s it; I should go. I’d stopped to look at the flyers around town many times over and took this as a final sign to take action.

So – off to the website I go (BTW – they have a great website) and low and behold there is a link for volunteers in the footer…I think… HMM> Very fitting to go back to Tahoe as a volunteer at this juncture in my life….

-SIDENOTE_ When 911 hit NYC I was in between jobs and apartments… my stuff was in storage in Long Island City and I had a ticket to go to Tahoe to volunteer at the Tahoe Film Festival…two weeks later- I went back to NYC, sold my truck (which I found all but on blocks in Greenpoint and my nephew had blown the clutch while I was gone ), stuck all my stuff in the mail to Tahoe City… (Can you imagine stomping into a PO in Soho with 11 boxes to ship?) -And flew right back. It seems fitting to return just over a decade later to volunteer at a yoga festival… maybe I’ll end up moving back?

Anyway – I fill out the volunteer application – hit send and then a blog entry pops up with a call for entries.. Best tag line for the Wanderlust Festival wins a package, airline tix, festival tix etc etc… SO then I’m googling about looking for ideas..and I find Street Yoga… I like it! Here’s a little video.. Check it out…

NOW – back to that tagline….hmmmmm..

Sensational Farmer Parody..

I grew up with this guy and I am AMAZED to see this.. Kudos brother!@

Learning not to Eat to Death

Food and eating is a subject I feel very strongly about. From Farm, Inc to Fresh to this individual TEDTalk there is loads of media supporting a movement towards educating people toward smarter sustainable local food production as well as healthier eating habits. Please share this talk.

Thats Rad TEDX -YOUTH

I’ve got nothing to say….Kudos to the makers….

Positive Psychology and Call to Action

This is awesome

Shawn Achor is the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology in the most popular class at Harvard. His research and lectures on happiness and human potential have received attention in The New York Times, Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, as well as on NPR and CNN Radio, and he travels around the United States and Europe giving talks on positive psychology to Fortune 500 corporations, schools, and non-profit organizations. Achor graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a BA in English and Religion and earned a Masters degree from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics. – TEDxBloomington..

I love what he talks about with regard to positive vs negative media… I still think that journalism about positive social activity still centers on the negative. I think we need to look at a different way to present the information about projects and start to shift societal thinking about what a call to action is. I know the tear jerking story always works (look at the Kony campaign) HOWEVER.. is that the only way it could work or are we just hardwired to only respond to that style of call to action??

Honestly the video that got me interested in the Kony campaign was the positive one ( did I post it here?) about the girl who fought to put an eye on the project.

Watch this.

Community fights negativity by reporting what is good!

That is what I am talking about!

We need to do this more in all of our communities –

Editor’s note: This post was written by Change InSight contributor, Abigail Wick.

“The community newspaper What’s Good in the Hood (WGITH) was originally borne out of frustration. Gladys Giatu felt the local news placed undue emphasis on violent tragedy. She was fed-up with sensationalist, crime-centric broadcast and print-media reports that cast her native town of Lawrence, Massachussetts in a negative light.

She decided to correct this imbalance by starting a community newspaper—one that would instead tell Lawrence residents the story of their own inspiration, redemption, and positive action. Gitau won start-up funding and received guidance through Ashoka’s Youth Venture program, which helped usher WGITH into reality. Now, a few years later, the WGITH team of local high-school students is successfully working to foster a new journalistic paradigm with positive, inspiring stories as its primary focus.

READ MORE AT ASOKA”

Misft Movement in Support of the PILL MILL Community

Though this is for youth I don’t necessarily wish to post this on Visible Youth. However I think the photo again represents something interesting. All the “teams” are represented by different communities and this young man is wearing an Americas T-shirt. This immediately made me want to know more about what they are doing in the UK and how it relates back to us in the States. I am not necessarily on board with the culture depicted by the misft movement but then I have to check my own bias.

You can’t really censor good work, huh? Not in any form..

“We recently took part in a Kick Out Racism event which we run annually in Pill, which was run in partnership with Pill Communities First and Newport Positive Futures. The event attracted over 100 young people who took part in music workshops and a football tournament. There was also free food on the night for the young people. It was a great night for all and we’re as well as us, the young people are all excited for the event next year.” _ quoted from Tumblr post by #misftmedia

Pill Mill is the Community Regeneration Charity for the disadvantaged area of Pillgwenlly in Newport. We exist to encourage participation in recreation, leisure and cultural activities which make an important contribution to the stability and wellbeing of the Pillgwenlly Community and the quality of life for all individuals.

Foodbank in the Netherlands

Pascal Maramis of the Netherland took some shots and used this gem to promote the Foodbank in Leidschendam / Voorburg:
www.stichtingburen.nl on tumblr….

“On Saturday, March 31 Rotary volunteers took a fundraising Foodbank action at the Albert Heijn
Really beautiful … to see “people in action!”

This is really what I like to see.. a great street photographer taking her art into the lives of the community. Pascal works as a graphics designer at az-grafisch serviceburo.