If a government agency stores the DNA and fingerprints of its residents can it serve them more efficiently or control them more effectively? (Image: News Decoder) A year after Kenya’s historic digital identity program was declared illegal, the Kenyan government is...
Many of the more than five thousand satellites orbiting the earth are capable of producing high-resolution images. International agreements aren’t as clear. A U.S. Air Force U-2 pilot looks down at a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon as it hovers over the...
Light pollution interferes with the breeding patterns of animals and insects. How can we look to the stars if we can’t even see them? Two night scenes. On the left, stars fill the sky over the Coconino National Forest. (Credit: Coconino National Forest, U.S....
Light pollution affects more than just our ability to see the Big Dipper at night. Dive into the environmental and human consequences of too much light and discover how we might turn the night sky on again.
Exercise: After reading the article, divide students into groups of 3-4 to discuss main takeaways from the text. Then, instruct each group to come up with a one-sentence public service announcement to get people to turn off unnecessary lights in their local community. The class can then vote for their favorite PSA.
New biometric systems scan your face or fingerprint as proof of ID, but many governments require an official card. For some people that’s a problem. Facial Recognition System starts its operation at JR Shinjuku Station in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo on 30 August 2021....
Algorithms that track the terms we plug into search engines determine what appears on the pages we pull up. Why does that feel so creepy? SEO concept by Anya Berkut/Getty Images More and more, we seem to get ads related to topics we plug into a search engine — long...
Social media can harm a young person’s mental health. Can youth be taught to use the platforms responsibly and avoid excessive consumption? Teenage girl under pressure to achieve (Ikon Images via AP Images) This article, by high school student Maria Ermanni,...
While there are positive aspects to social media platforms, they can also pose mental health risks. There is the fear of missing out and pressure to become more beautiful, slimmer, cooler and sportier. Student Maria Ermanni of Realgymnasium Rämibühl in Zürich talked to an expert about the positives and negatives of social media for teens and reached the conclusion that while social platforms have become an indispensable part of our daily lives, the responsibility for safe media use lies with the user.
Exercise: Have students write a paragraph that describes their best and worst experience with social media. Then ask them to consider whether they think that there should be limits on what people can post and share on social media, and if yes, what those limits should be. Ultimately, do they think that the benefits of social media outweigh the negative toll it has taken on the mental health of young people?
Despite conflicts on Earth, satellites orbit in peace. But use of Elon Musk’s Starlink to aid Ukraine has Russia looking to the sky with hostile eyes. A rocket booster carrying three Gonets-M satellites and the first Skif-D satellite of the Sfera programme lifts...
While all kinds of international conflicts occur on the ground, up in space things have been pretty peaceful. We depend on peace in the skies because such things as social media, multiplayer video games, Google classrooms and Zoom sessions rely on satellites bouncing signals across the earth. Correspondent Tira Shubart tells us why tensions on the ground in Ukraine could disturb the tacit and explicit agreements over satellites in the sky.
Exercise: Let’s imagine that each student has been hired to draw up an international agreement to govern and protect satellites that need to cross the skies over international borders. What are the five most important considerations that would have to be included in this treaty? Some things to consider are: The citizens in every country want fast and reliable Internet; people want their privacy protected; and countries are concerned about the possible military use of satellites.
It’s been 50 years since humans walked on the Moon. Now, the U.S. is launching a costly program to return there and possibly pave the way to Mars. NASA’s Space Launch System rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida,...
Five decades after humans walked on the Moon, the U.S. space agency NASA is leading an international endeavor to return there at a cost of $93 billion. Correspondent Natasha Comeau decodes the Artemis project, a series of missions to build a long-term human presence on the Moon. The 21 nations that have signed the Artemis Accords for space exploration reflect today’s political divisions. Missing from the collaboration are China and Russia, which plan to build a lunar station of their own. It was competition with the then Soviet Union in the 1960s that spurred the first space race and resulted in the historic 1969 moon landing. Now, a host of private corporations are funding their own space initiatives.
Exercise: In teams, have students form their own private space exploration company. Were they able to successfully build their own rocket that could take people into space, what would be their mission? What would they hope to get out of their space exploration ventures? Have each team come up with three things they think space missions could accomplish.
Technology depends on rare earth minerals, but their extraction can harm our planet. Asteroids offer a plentiful source of valuable elements. In the future, mankind will go to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to mine for the vast wealth that is within the...
I got my start as a news photographer in the analog age. Technology has reshaped the tools of the trade, but human trust remains its watchword. The author’s photo of the Jamaican bobsled team crashing at the 1988 Winter Olympics, as published in the New York...
