I am going to submit another (way better) entry to the second Greener Gadgets this year. I think the Greener Gadgets competition is a really neat way of encouraging green innovations.

Yesterday I watched a TED talk about how “school kills creativity” by Sir Ken Robinson. One thing I noticed is that there was no solution that he mentioned. So I thought I might as well try to structure a school that would allow creativity to florish, and in fact be built around that purpose while still covering some basic subjects that are required in regular schools. If my idea works out I’m going to enter it in the Buckminister Fuller Challenge (with my dad as a team member to pass eligibility).

Make sure your stocking stuffers don’t end up as landfill stuffers this holiday season. If you are about to resort to gimicky plastic trinkets that will be used once and then tossed, consider something else:

Use a smaller stocking

Use snacks or food like mandarine oranges or nuts

Put small presents in stockings

Today I brought a whole bunch of old video cases that I had decorated with Sharpies to school as a part of the CAN’s fundraiser for the Amazon Rainforest. I made over $25 for the cause, just on a short day. That is more than 1 and 2/3 of an acre. Zoë had this idea to also decorate the mini white pencils that the school got donated, and our teacher let us use a bunch of his. None of the pencils got sold yet, but the are really cool and I am sure they will work. This is one of the most successful fundraisers I have ever done with things I have made for no cost (aside from Sharpie ink). The public library was just throwing away old video cases and my mom saved them for me and my brother, guessing we could figure out something to do with them.

I had two field trips today, so I missed pretty much all of school except for snack and lunchhour, which I think is kind of ironic. The first was to the food bank, which I came to as a student council representative (minister of environment). To make a kind of long story short, we went to the nearest food bank, and after a presentation about it we had a tour. The visit was really cool, but it isn’t really what this post is about.

After lunch Zoë, Mrs. Rosa (my really awesome principal), and I drove to the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library and went to the room. As usual with the conferences we go to, we sat in the front seats. I got out my all-purpose notebook and my trusty mechanical ‘zebra’ pencil. The presentation we watched was by Simon Jackson, the chairman, spokesperson, and founder of the Spirit Bear Coalition. He did a great presentation, and connected the spirit bear to climate change in a very interesting way at the end, how the spirit bear leaves salmon carcasses to rot, which fertilize the soil allowing the trees of the great bear rainforest to grow huge and absorb far more carbon dioxide than they otherwise would. Simon made a lot of great points. Everyone in the world should care about the spirit bear even though it only lives in a small corner of BC, just the way everyone in the world cares about the panda bear that only lives in China. The one thing that carried this young leader from failure to failure to failure without giving up was that he had succeeded once before, and he knew he could do it. We need to give this change, this inspiration, this driving force to the children of today and of tomorrow.

I’m afraid I’m only scratching the surface of this issue, however the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition has a website (a very well-done one too). Here is a link:

http://www.spiritbearyouth.org/

After the presentation Zoë and I went up on the podium for about a minute to announce that we were selling Tyee’s CAN calendar (It is really, really nice by the way; thanks to Nadene and Pete who spent thier weekend putting it together) and how much it cost, that the money was going to environmental initiatives in Tyee’s CAN club, etc. and lots of people bought them, although some of them would have liked to buy more but could’t because of lack of cash. Despite the fact that we could not take payment by mastercard, we made more than $100 (Canadian) of proceeds, which will go to environmental projects and fun days, as well as towards protecting the Amazon Rainforest. We also left some behind so they could continue being sold at the conference even though we had to leave in the middle of it.

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention that Simon Jackson is making a Hollywood movie about the spirit bear, and some of the money from the movie tickets will go towards protecting the spirit bear, and the small, intact corner of the globe that is it’s habitat. Finding Nemo made around 300 million dollars…