isten to “Here is our conversation with Lessa Carter-Jones, President and CEO of Captain Planet Foundation. Green Heart STEM Challenge Launches…” on Spreaker.

ATLANTA, GA — The Captain Planet Foundation recently announced the launch of the 2026 Green Heart STEM Challenge, welcoming its largest cohort to date with nearly 5,000 students, 132 educators, and 71 schools across 11 states participating. 

The Green Heart STEM Challenge is delivered through a hybrid model, with in-person programming in metro Atlanta, Houston, and Miami, alongside virtual participation that enables schools in additional states to engage fully. This structure supports deep, place-based learning in core communities while expanding national access.

Designed for students in grades 6–9, the Challenge blends STEM learning with real-world problem solving, guiding students to identify environmental challenges in their communities and develop practical, implementable solutions. It follows a rotating, four-year cycle focused on EARTH, WIND, FIRE, and WATER, ensuring students explore a broad range of environmental systems and solutions over time.

The 2026 Challenge features EARTH, with students exploring issues such as soil health, tree canopy, composting, and food waste. Educators onboard students to the Challenge platform, where teams form, research, and begin building solutions rooted in local needs.

“What sets this Challenge apart is that students are mentored and funded to implement their winning ideas,!” said Leesa Carter-Jones, President and CEO of Captain Planet Foundation. “They’re not just learning about environmental challenges, they’re designing solutions and being held accountable for real outcomes.”

Since its launch, the Challenge has shown growing, measurable impact. In recent cycles, hundreds of student teams have progressed from ideas to formal project plans, with an increasing percentage advancing to implementation. Past winners have secured additional funding, expanded beyond their schools, and built long-term community partnerships, including teams in Atlanta and Houston continuing work well beyond the Challenge timeline. Across cohorts, student-led projects have tackled composting and food waste, erosion control and reforestation, water quality, repair-and-reuse systems, and circularity efforts reducing fast fashion and single-use waste.

The Challenge is supported by Accenture, Amazon, Delta Air Lines, Georgia Natural Gas, Green Mountain Energy, and Susan J. Klein, among others. Accenture employees also serve as volunteer mentors and project managers, helping student teams refine ideas, develop budgets, and prepare for implementation through the Challenge’s Idea Incubator.

Entering its fourth year, the Green Heart STEM Challenge continues to show what’s possible when students are trusted with real responsibility, and supported to turn ideas into action.

About Captain Planet Foundation
Captain Planet Foundation is an award-winning U.S.-based nonprofit that empowers young people to be problem-solvers for the planet. Over the past 35 years, more than 1.7 million children have directly participated in CPF programs, supporting more than 3,700 projects and impacting 11.4 million young people worldwide. Founded in 1991 by Ted Turner and Barbara Pyle, CPF advances environmental education through programs including Project Learning Garden, Planeteer Alliance, and the Green Heart STEM Challenge. Learn more at www.captainplanetfoundation.org.

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The Jazz Club

The post Great JAZZ at the Jazz Club at the Aman Hotel, NY, NY. Imani Rousselle and her Great Band and King and The TANGIERS BLUES BAND appeared first on Good News!.

Amplifying diverse voices isn’t just the right thing to do — companies with diverse teams are more likely to boost profitability and innovation. By empowering underrepresented groups, we’re breaking down digital barriers, improving accessibility, and building an industry that works for everyone.

The Innovation For All program at CES brought together the thought leaders and allies who are making this possible.

LEARN MORE

Video on Demand

Check out these sessions and more — now available on demand.

• Fostering the Future: Strengthening the STEM Pipeline for Success
• Accessibility & Inclusion: Expanding the Diversity Conversation
• Empowering Women in Venture: Funding Gaps and Investing Opportunities
• Inclusive Investing: Driving Detroit’s Entrepreneurial Growth

CTA Innovation For All Fund

Women and underrepresented entrepreneurs often receive less funding, which is why CTA invested $10 million — and announced an additional $5 million at CES 2025 — into venture funds and firms supporting diverse leadership and founders through our Innovation For All Fund. To unlock the next big idea, we must ensure everyone has an opportunity to innovate.

LEARN MORE

You May Also Be Interested In

Take a look at some of the emerging areas that made a splash at CES 2025.

CES

Rise of the Enterprise

Across North Hall, Eureka Park, and the rest of the CES show floor, we saw a rise in technologies to benefit tomorrow’s work from AI agents, to blockchain security, to media and advertising generation.

Smart Glasses

Smart glasses built on their momentum from last year and increasingly look to be a viable device platform for widespread consumer and enterprise adoption with EssilorLuxottica, Halladay and XREAL, showcasing advancements in display tech, AI assistant features, XR capabilities, and more.

ETS

Energy Transition & Sustainability

The rise of power intensive technologies drove a larger presence of enterprise and industrial companies like 3M, Eaton, Eneos, Hitachi, SK and more focused on energy transition technologies to boost zero carbon energy generation, infrastructure, and beyond.

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http://gvhdalliance.org/

Living with GVHD can be overwhelming for patients, as well as their caregivers and family. The disease creates many daily life challenges which can adversely affect physical functioning, bodily pain, chronic fatigue, general health, vitality, and social functioning, among other things.2 People living with GVHD can also face physical, functional, and psychosocial deficits that result in the inability to return to work or school.2

Since people living with GVHD may lack access to valuable resources that can help them live their best lives, leading transplant groups (with support from Sanofi) have formed the GVHD Alliance to bridge the gaps that exist in the unmet needs of the patient community. The first GVHD Day on February 17, 2023, will elevate voices in support of people impacted by the condition.

Dr. Corey Cutler, MD, MPH, FRCPC, Medical Director, Stem Cell Transplant Program, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Vice President, American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT) and GVHD patient Meredith A. Cowden, MA, AT, LPCC-S, Patient Advocacy Director of the Meredith A. Cowden Foundation, will be available on Thursday, February 2nd to discuss the inaugural GVHD Day, the importance of bringing attention to this rare disease, and a new website for the GVHD community to access a variety of educational resources and support tools.

When you book a window, we’ll provide you with guest bio & suggested questions. Interview is courtesy: Sanofi

References
1.    Justiz Vaillant AA, Modi P, Mohammadi O. Graft versus host disease. In:
StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing; 2022. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538235. Accessed November 10, 2022.
2.    Lee SJ. Classification systems for chronic graft-versus-host disease. Blood. 2017;129(1):30-37.

#gvhdalliance #gvhd #graftversushostdisease #bringingawareness #february17 #drcoreycutler #meredithacowden #stemcell #physicalfunctioning #bodilypain #chronicfatigue #generalhealth #vitality #socialfunctioning

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FRIDAY, OCT 14
10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Pier 84

Hudson River Park’s River Project is committed to advancing public awareness and understanding of our local waterways. The SUBMERGE festival — offering two days of learning and excitement in the Park — aims to inspire audiences of all ages and make marine science and STEM accessible and engaging for everyone.

Registration is required for some activities; please check back to learn about individual program information as we get closer to the Festival date.

https://hudsonriverpark.org/the-park/parks-river-project/

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#wonderama #timessquare #newyork #kidsshow #talent #educational #enterain #educate #duffysquare #davidosmond #coco #breezydotson #stem #funmessygames

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Nuclear fusion saw another major breakthrough… a ‘huge step’ in the quest for clean energy.

A woman was cured of HIV through a breakthrough stem cell treatment.

MIT engineers created an ‘impossible’ new material… stronger than steel but as light as plastic.

An international team of scientists used supercomputers to unlock a ‘giant leap’ in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

A new ‘game-changing’ carbon capture technology could deliver a step change in our ability to remove dioxide from the air.

Researchers set a new Guinness World Record for fastest-ever DNA sequencing technique… using it to sequence a human genome in just 5 hours and 2 minutes.

A new breakthrough in spinal cord implant ‘could potentially allow paralysed people to walk again’.

A ground-breaking new technology regrew a frog’s lost leg… and it might work on humans too.

Surgeons completed the first-ever heart transplant with a genetically-modified animal heart… saving the life of a 57-year-old and taking a big step towards helping solve the global donor organ shortage.

Biodegradable surgical tape has been invented… making some intestinal fixes as easy as ‘duct tape around leaky pipes’.

James Webb, the awe-inspiring $10 billion space telescope 25 years in the making, took its first images… a huge scientific milestone.

An autonomous drone carrying a defibrillator saved the life of a 71-year-old having a heart attack… a first in medical history.

Researchers in Sweden found a promising way to use solar power to convert carbon dioxide into fuel… using ultra-fast laser spectroscopy.

Just a few of many incredible achievements in the first 50 days of the year.

The world is far from perfect, but we shouldn’t forget that about 90% of all scientists that ever lived are alive today. Never before have we had so many people whose sole purpose of work is to better understand how the world works.

2022 is shaping up to be a remarkable year in science and technology.

#nuclear #fusion #breakthrough #clean #energy #hiv #cure #stem #cell #mit #antibiotic #resistance #scientist #sweden #fuel #technology #dna #humans #science #organ

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This is such a classic science activity that your children will absolutely love. I loved doing it so much myself and watching the changes that seemed to happen within the hour!

It only required a few materials to set up this science experiment and inspired Possum (aged 3.5 years) to learn more about plants and how they absorb water.

This activity is an amazing visual for kids. It teaches them how a plant absorbs water up it’s stem and nourishes its petals or leaves.

The brightly coloured water will transform the white flowers within only a few minutes.

It’s amazing and creates a great ‘WOW’ factor for kids. To do this science activity you will need the following materials –

White flowers (chrysanthemums, roses or daisies would work well)
Small containers or jars
Water
Food colouring

I used chrysanthemums, but you might like to use whatever white flowers you have available. Obviously some flowers may not absorb water as well as others.

To set up this activity I simply used a collection of small jars. I added 1/2 cup of clean water and 10 drops of food colouring to each of the jars. Red, yellow, green, blue and purple were the colours I made the water.

I didn’t have purple food colouring so I needed to create it using a combination of red and blue drops. Possum loved watching how the two colours, when combined, made a completely new colour.

How to make your flowers change colour
Quite simply, I cut the stem of the flowers so there was about 6 inches of stem remaining before placing one in each of the jars.

I highly recommend ensuring there are no leaves left on the stem as it can go mouldy in the water, which will reduce the time you can keep this activity. Place your jars in a safe location that will gives them some lovely natural sunlight. We placed our on the kitchen windowsill.

Making predictions
I wanted the end result to be a surprise to Possum and so I asked her what she expected to happen to the flowers over time. Some children may benefit from drawing their predictions. It’s also a great idea to do this because children can return to their initial predictions and make comparisons to the actual end result.

TA DA!
This is the result of the flowers absorbing the coloured water after one week. All of the flowers absorbed the coloured water and highlighted how it travelled all the way to the tips of the petals to nourish it. Mind blown.

But what is even more surprising is that within an hour of us starting the experiment we were able to notice some changes to the white flowers. Amazing! Every three days I snipped off a bit of the end of the stem, which kept the flower fresh and absorbing water.

I’m sure you’ll agree that the results we experienced in the colour changing experiment were absolutely amazing. It did seem like we had magical colour changing flowers.

Possum loved watching the changes over the course of the week. One thing we did observe was that the flower in the purple coloured water didn’t absorb quire as well as the others. Still amazing, but less vibrant in comparison.

We also observed that the flower seemed to be able to separate the two food colours. We mixed them make the purple colour initially, but you can see how they separated above. Cool,

These beautiful flowers, at the end of the experiment, found themselves in some fresh clear water and on display in Possums room.

Of course they were a great talking point for her and her friends that came over to visit her.

This was such a wonderful science activity that I really encourage you to do with your own children. It really didn’t take much to set up and the changes can be observed within an hour.

Your children can make predictions and record the changes by drawing what they see each day.

It’s a great visual demonstration of how plants absorb water up their stem to nourish itself. I hope you enjoy this one.

#science #experiment #colour #changing #flowers #children #plants #water #visual #kids #stem #daises #roses #jars #blue #red #green #yellow #white #purple

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Listen to “Cristal Glangchai, Whats keeping girls out of STEM? Why?” on Spreaker.

Girls at a very young age are curious about science and math—about 74% of kindergarten girls want to go into STEM—but by the time they reach middle school, only 15-20% remain interested.

Scientist, author, and professor Cristal Glangchai, PhD, attributes this to the way educators, parents, and the media talk to girls about pursuing STEM careers. She argues that a key part of raising strong, confident young women is giving them the tools of entrepreneurship to engage in STEM.

Glangchai’s new book, VentureGirls: Raising Girls to be Tomorrow’s Leaders (HarperCollins; May 2018) explains what has kept young girls out of STEM fields, as well as the practical applications of STEM learning, and how we can address the gender imbalance therein.

Dr. Glangchai offers a unique solution based on her own experience as an engineer and entrepreneur as well as the founder of VentureLab, a nonprofit that empowers kids, especially girls, with an entrepreneurial mind-set. VentureGirls.

Dr. Glangchai can discuss or write about the following:

• Women and STEM: How, as of now, women make up only 29% of the science and engineering workforce. Dr. Glangchai can share her fundamentals for empowering young girls in STEM.

• How STEM Education Impacts Entrepreneurship: Dr. Glangchai explains how science teaches kids about failure, and why learning to embrace failure is the key to entrepreneurial success.

• Creating Young Entrepreneurs: 65% of kids will have jobs that we cannot even imagine today. How parents can and should encourage kids as young as 5 years old to embrace their innovativeness and entrepreneurial mindset.

Publishers Weekly recently called VentureGirls a “game-changing guide to empowering young women.” The author has been featured on the TODAY Show, NPR, Wall Street Journal, TEDx, and much more.

#stem #girls #girl #lady #ladies #women #woman #keeping #keep #science #math #kindergarten #want #middle #school #curious #cristal #glangchai #educators #parents #media #talk #pursuing #careers #key #part #raising #strong #confident #giving #tools #entrepreneurship #engage #venture #lab #venturelab #venturegirls #empower #nonprofit #imbalance #gender #learning #embrace

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www.catemsummitt.com

Christopher Roe is the chief executive office of the California STEM Learning Network (CSLNet), a nonprofit organization working to ensure that California is a national leader in preparing STEM-capable students.

Roe is in charge of overseeing the creation of strategic relationships and collaborating with regional, state and national partners to rapidly scale innovative STEM teaching and learning across K-14 education in order that all students have access to high-quality learning opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the critical fields that fuel California’s dynamic economy. In addition, Roe been appointed by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson to serve on the newly-created STEM Task Force that will examine how to improve the way California educates its students in these subjects and engage more students in scientific and technical fields, which are integral to the state’s economic future.

Prior to joining CSLNet, Roe served as the Deputy Director for the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF), a membership organization comprised of corporate CEOs and senior executives, college and university presidents, and foundation leaders working together to advance innovative solutions to the nation’s most significant education challenges. In this role, Roe worked closely with BHEF’s members, policymakers, and educators to develop and advance innovative policy and programmatic solutions to our nation’s most pressing education challenges. While at BHEF Roe provided leadership for its STEM initiative, which has as its goal doubling the number of STEM graduates nationally.

Roe previously was also managing director of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research and the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement, based at Stanford University. Roe is also co-founder of Pacific Educational Group, based in San Francisco, CA, and the Foundation for a College Education (FCE) located in East Palo Alto, CA, an award-winning non-profit organization that assists students of color and their families in attaining a college education.

Roe has authored or contributed to a number of reports on issues of state and federal higher education policy, including “An American Imperative: Transforming the Recruitment, Retention, and Renewal of Our Nation’s Mathematics and Science Teaching Workforce” by the Business-Higher Education Forum and “New Models of Leadership and Collaboration to Improve Science Education: The Role of Business” in Science Education Leadership by NSTA Press.

Roe received his master’s in public policy from the University of California-Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, and his bachelor’s of science degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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