Culture Watch

South Portland’s two assistant principals regularly patrol student bathrooms to check for vaping. Bennett has a bag full of confiscated Juuls as well as other brands of e-cigarettes and the pods or “juice” to refill them. An Alabama high school reportedly took the doors off student bathroom stalls to prevent kids from hiding while vaping. And a New Jersey school has installed electronic vaping detectors in student bathrooms that set off an alarm in administrative offices when vaping is detected, according to news reports. Meanwhile, a bill that would ban sweet-tasting nicotine products is gaining momentum in Massachusetts, and lawmakers in Arkansas, New Jersey and Utah are discussing similar restrictions. more »

Media attention to climate change has been increasing over the past several years, but not all articles on the subject are entirely accurate, and it can sometimes be difficult for non-expert readers to separate the wheat from the misleading chaff. To help with this quandary, Climate Feedback reviews high-profile climate change articles from a wide variety of publications, then annotates and verifies or rebuts their claims; STEM teachers looking for a hands-on unit to pique their students' interest in engineering may want to check out this activity available through TeachEngineering; Instructors of US history, civics, or social studies may be interested in this set of three lesson plans from EDSITEment, the National Endowment for the Humanities' online collection of free teaching resources ... and more. more »

Rose Madeline Mula writes: I wore frilly, voluminous petticoats that propped up impossibly full dresses. Yes, these may have been ridiculous — but I think far preferable to today’s skirts and dresses that are stretched so tightly across tummies and tushies that they produce a series of unsightly horizontal wrinkles that have somehow become an accepted fashion statement instead of an abomination to be banished by a steam iron. And it’s amazing how women manage to sit while their torsos are bound in those impossibly tight, short frocks. (“Frocks.” Now that’s a word that really dates me.) more »

Governmentwide coordination, planning, and research in climate change response needs to be improved, as does access to information and technical assistance for decision makers. These areas are part of GAO’s High Risk List designation for climate change. Policymakers have raised questions about climate engineering, or geoengineering — large-scale deliberate interventions in the earth’s climate system to diminish climate change or its impacts — and its role in a broader strategy of mitigating and adapting to climate change.   Key Issues > Climate Change Response Climate Change Response The federal government’s potential respons… more »