What Can Substitute Teachers Do for City Schools? CityLab
The average teacher misses 9.4 days each school year. Total it up, and by high school graduation, a student will have spent six months of class-time with a substitute teacher. Rather than having a sub plod through an unfamiliar lesson plan or just distribute worksheets, a new model at two Boston schools places local experts in urban farming, animation, robotics, puppetry — you name it — at the blackboard to teach about their field.
Taxing Drivers by the Mile, Instead of at the Pump, The Denver Post
Hybrid and electric vehicles may be a boon to the atmosphere, but they’ve caused some headaches for government administrators, namely, how to pay for bridge and road repairs. Prius drivers travel farther on a tank — functionally discounting their share of the gas tax — so the Colorado Department of Transportation is testing the feasibility of a fairer standard: charging for each mile driven instead.
Can Hypothermia Save Gunshot Victims? The New Yorker
Most people who suffer a traumatic gunshot wound die within an hour. Having lost so much blood, their heart can no longer circulate what’s left. A new procedure at University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center, near Baltimore, buys more time by putting the body on ice. When a victim is wheeled in, doctors fill the body with freezing saline, pausing heartbeats and giving them just enough time to sew up the wounds.
Tag: Gun Violence
Giving Mickey Mouse an Energy Boost Helps the Environment, How One Neighborhood Transformed Itself from the Country’s Worst and More
Want Power? Fire Up the Tomatoes and Potatoes, National Geographic
In Florida, scientists discovered that the tomato can be transformed from a lycopene storehouse into an electrical powerhouse. Considering that the annual surplus in South Florida could power Disney World for three months, is a new type of utility — one that’s fueled by food waste — in the state’s future?
How Cincinnati Salvaged the Nation’s Most Dangerous Neighborhood, Politico
Simply put, in 2009, Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood was the nation’s worst. When city government couldn’t provide a lifeline to the downtrodden area, a nonprofit private development company stepped in. Now, in just seven short years, the community is experiencing a blossoming transformation.
New California Law Could Keep Guns Away from People Like Omar Mateen, Reveal
After a mass shooting tragedy in 2014, the Golden State proved that it’s possible to pass sensible gun legislation. Its gun violence restraining order can prevent someone from purchasing or possessing a firearm for 21 days if law enforcement or a family member is worried they’ll turn violent.
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What Wives of Veterans Can Learn from Female Soldiers, How Doctors Are Saving the Lives of Gunshot Victims Before the Trigger Is Ever Pulled and More
What Army Wives Need to Understand About Female Soldiers, The Washington Post
Much is said about bridging the military-civilian divide, but as writer (and wife of a veteran) Lily Burana realizes, there’s also a distance between the women who proudly sport the uniform and those who are married to someone wearing it. Knowing that the military is full of inspirational females — including those now serving in the Ranger division — Burana set out to build a bridge the only way she knew how: by sitting down to lunch and having a chat.
Are Doctors the Key to Ending Philly Gun Violence? Philadelphia Magazine
Renowned for providing lifesaving medical treatment to kids, doctors from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are focusing their efforts on reducing the cycle of youth violence that plagues the City of Brotherly Love. The hospital’s Violence Intervention Program (VIP) grew out of internal discussions about the Sandy Hill Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., and a shocking report from the city government, which found that 5,051 Philadelphia youth were shot or murdered between 2006 and 2012. It’s difficult to know for sure if the screenings, bully prevention lessons and intensive counseling sessions, which make up VIP, is reducing the number of gunshot victims, but the outlook is hopeful, considering most participants say they desire to be a normal teenager, not one packing heat.
The Power of Vision in Urban Governance, Governing
Every politician may have the goal of being dubbed a “visionary leader,” but Indianapolis’s former four-term mayor, Bill Hudnut, actually was. In order to bring forth the Midwestern city’s potential, Hudnut enlisted help from Indianapolis business and philanthrophic leaders and economic development experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Together, these heavy-hitters combined their strengths, collaborating on a plan that eventually brought $1 billion to the local economy — proving that collective vision and use of community assets is key to long-term impact.
Gun Violence Devastated This Man’s Family. He’s Determined to Not Let It Happen to Others
Since his childhood, Ian Johnstone has been unwittingly close to the issue of gun violence in America.
When Ian Johnstone was just 10 years old, his father was shot during a random robbery attempt in San Francisco. The perpetrators were a group of teenagers who had been using drugs; the 16-year-old shooter fired once into the elder Johnstone’s back, instantly paralyzing him. A week later, his dad died in the hospital from complications.
It goes without saying that Johnstone can personally attest to how the improper use of a firearm can devastate a family. He and his sister had to grow up without a father and their mother without the man “she had planned on spending the rest of her life with.”
“You can’t help but feel frustrated and jaded and powerless about the issue,” says Johnstone.
Those feelings returned to the forefront of his mind in late 2013 after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. While living in the San Francisco bay area and working in the tech industry, the idea of crowdfunding gun buyback programs came up while he was speaking with a group of friends. Instead of relying on funds from cities or grants, money raised to finance buybacks could come from private online donations — often from people in the very communities most affected by gun violence.
From this conversation, Gun By Gun was born. In less than two years, the organization has crowdsourced more than $80,000, using the money to collect more than 750 guns in four cities over the course of five campaigns.
Criticisms of gun buybacks stretch back to the 1960s when the programs first started being widely used. One of the strongest arguments against them was that they often collected inoperable firearms (certainly not the guns making America’s streets dangerous). To ensure that it only pays for working firearms, Gun By Gun, like most modern buyback programs, has a range specialist on hand at all their events.
Another criticism of these initiatives is that they only collect a small percentage of the guns out there in America (a number, which experts estimate to be anywhere between 270 million to 310 million). Johnstone acknowledges that the impact of Gun By Gun “may not be a drop in the bucket,” but cites the importance of letting communities affected by violence do something concrete together to address the problem.
Ultimately, Johnstone hopes Gun By Gun can be a catalyst for inspiring further action aimed at reducing gun violence. He points to the diversity of the people that the program has already brought together, from mothers who lost their children, to police officers and former criminals.
“Gun By Gun has been a way that I feel I can add meaning to the death of my father,” says Johnstone. “I’ve met so many people who have lost loved ones to gun violence and they want to do something which is, frankly, its part of the healing process.”
How New York City Police Plan to Use Smart Roofs to Control Gun Violence
As temperatures heat up, New York City police are cracking down on crime with a little help from the rooftops.
The NYPD announced plans to roll out a $1.5 million pilot program which uses rooftop sensors to monitor and determine the exact location of gunshots stretching over 15 square miles of the city, Capital New York reports.
The city has seen a recent uptick in shootings: 562 as of July 6 compared to 514 during the same time period last year. Mayor Bill de Blasio first mentioned the sensor program, created by California-based ShotSpotter Inc., when he ran for office last year.
Police commissioner Bill Bratton, who formerly served on ShotSpotter’s board, called the sensors “extraordinarily effective” at a City Council hearing in May.
“The best systems are those that you can tie in with your camera systems. You not only get recording of the gunshots, but you get the camera activation right away,” he said.
The two-year program includes special strategically placed microphones that use triangulation to detect exact locations of gunshots in real-time. Analysts monitor the microphones around the clock and distinguish the difference between actual gunshots and false positives from other sounds such as fireworks.
“This is the type of new and innovative technology that can be instrumental in aiding efforts to reduce the number of shootings and save lives in communities that have been hot spots of gun violence,” said City Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson, who chairs the public safety committee.
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The Moving New Video That’s Prompting Viewers to Act on an Important Issue
In a moving new video published by Generation Progress to protest gun violence, a young African-American man and a young white woman stand side by side on a crowded stage.
“On May 10, my friend Blair Holt was shot and killed on a Chicago city bus,” the young man says, staring straight at the camera.
“On December 14, my mom survived the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school,” the young woman says.
The video is part of a new #Fight4the33 campaign to honor the young victims of gun violence — and to remind Congress that young people want them to act.
Generation Progress, a national organization that works with young people to promote progressive solutions to social problems, teamed up with the Director of the National Jazz Theater of Harlem, Jon Baptiste and students from Duke Ellington High School in Washington, D.C., to create the video.
Throughout the video, young bodies dance across the stage, falling and rising in a twisted version of “Ring Around the Rosy” while students speak to the horrifying facts of gun violence in the United States. Thirty-three people are murdered by guns every day in America. An American under the age of 25 dies by gunfire every 70 minutes. Baptiste sings “We all fall down” as the camera pans over the crumpled bodies of the students lying on the stage.
The launch of the #Fight4the33 campaign, named for the 33 daily victims of gun violence, coincided with the anniversaries of the Columbine and Virginia Tech school shootings. It has also been one year since Congress’ failed vote to pass comprehensive background check legislation.
The film ends with a young woman standing alone, looking in devastation on the fallen bodies of her peers.
The video makes you want to act — and you can, by remembering those who have died, and by joining the #Fight4the33 campaign.
You’ll Never Believe What This Peace-Promoting Sculpture is Made Of
Does a work of art have the ability to reduce violence in America and inspire others to work for peace? That’s the hope of students at Centaurus High School (CHS) in Lafayette, Colorado, who are collaborating on a new piece of artwork.
The 2012 Sandy Hook shooting motivated CHS students to research gun violence for their political action class. They tracked U.S. deaths due to guns after Sandy Hook to the end of 2013, tallying a total of 12,400 reported gun fatalities. Last May, in the middle of the lesson, a 16-year-old student at Centaurus attempted to detonate a pipe bomb at the school. Thankfully no one was hurt, as a teacher discovered the device and administrators evacuated the building.
The shaken-up students wanted to do something to impress upon others what they’ve learned about violence in America, so they came up with the idea of inviting a local artist to create a sculpture from melted guns. “We figured what better way to bring awareness to the issue than build a memorial for those who died where people walk by it every day and think, ‘What is this about?'” 18-year-old student Kenny Sweetnam told Elizabeth Hernandez of the Boulder Daily Camera.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office donated surrendered guns, teaching the students how to disarm them and supervising the sawing of the guns so they no longer functioned. Sculptor Jessica Adams is guiding the students as they use the melted gun metal to create a sculpture out of 12,400 rods, one for each gun victim in 2013, with longer rods for younger victims, symbolizing the length of the lives they were not able to live.
Sheila Dierks, a priest at the Light of Christ Ecumenical Catholic Church who is volunteering with the project said, “By transforming these guns into art, we’re giving less power to the gun and more to the power of change we hope to see.”
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MORE: Is Learning About Guns the Solution to Youth Violence?