Hasta La Gadget!

“Upstream is where you grew up, where you came from. Downstream is what you leave behind, your legacy.”

— Carol Armstrong, Los Angeles Mayor’s office

Eighty percent of Americans live in urban areas with limited opportunities to experience nature. The restoration of our urban rivers and watersheds provides an opportunity to leave behind a downstream legacy that provides ways for people to connect with nature while cleaning our waters.

This week, Sierra Club joined forces with twenty-seven other non-governmental organizations, including several members of the Outdoors Alliance for Kids, to pledge support for the Urban Waters Federal Partnership. Together, the NGO community signed the following statement of support:

We commend the work that is making a visible difference in communities across the country by engaging urban populations in restoring their rivers and surrounding neighborhoods, improving access for water recreation and helping create a network of parks and greenspaces connecting downtown cores with suburban and rural areas. We believe the Partnership provides a powerful means for federal agencies to better connect with our metropolitan areas and engage all residents — especially youth — in conservation and stewardship of nature where they live, work and play.

The pledge was made during a national meeting of the Urban Waters Federal Partnership where leaders from across the country gathered to share best practices around protecting, restoring and connecting communities with urban rivers and watersheds. The Partnership grew out of President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative and is now a collaborative effort of fourteen federal agencies working with local governments, non-governmental organizations and community groups in 19 cities across the country.

Sierra Club recognizes that a 21st-century environmental movement depends on getting kids and communities unplugged and outside. For most people, experiencing nature depends on their ability to access public spaces close to home, nearby nature. That’s why as Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune noted, “we’re proud to be a part of this community-driven partnership to restore and protect urban waterways. Together we will help open the door for more families to explore and enjoy the outdoors.”

Sierra Club has a long legacy of connecting people with nature and empowering them to defend the places they love. Over one hundred years ago, our founder John Muir led outings into the high Sierras. Our Inspiring Connections Outdoors program was established in the 1970s to ensure youth, primarily from urban communities of color, had quality opportunities to explore and enjoy nature. Now, our ICO program is operating in over fifty cities and towns across the country, breaking down barriers to getting outdoors.

We’re also working in several cities to turn that love for the outdoors into action to protect and restore urban waters and watersheds. Here are a few examples:

• In Albuquerque, volunteer networks are educating the public through outings and presentations about the importance of protecting the “Bosque,” Spanish for “forest,” one of the only intact riparian areas in the entire United States that lies within a city. The Middle Rio Grande River runs through the “Bosque,” and Sierra Club volunteers provide educational outdoor opportunities for kids and families in the forest.
• In Baltimore, Sierra Club is organizing city residents to support a five-year dramatic expansion of green practices designed to reduce polluted runoff, which will include tree plantings, rain gardens and other greening initiatives. At the same time, our Baltimore Inspiring Connections Outdoors program is connecting youth from Baltimore City with the outdoors.
• In Detroit, Sierra Club is increasing green infrastructure, such as native plants, rain gardens, wetlands, trees, green roofs and bioswales, to reduce the number and volume of sewage overflows and extend the life of the city’s wastewater system. Community leaders provide training in rain barrel installation and lead bicycle outings to educate people about successful green infrastructure projects throughout the city.
• Sierra Club, along with our partners in the San Gabriel Mountains Forever coalition, has successfully connected communities with the Angeles National Forest in the backyard of Los Angeles. Our team of organizers spent years getting to know the community and working to empower residents to help determine the future of the San Gabriel Mountains. The partnership includes over one hundred city, business, faith, health, conservation and community groups and leaders working together to improve access and protections for the San Gabriel Mountains and waters. Their hard work led to the establishment of the San Gabriel Mountains as a National Monument and continues as the community helps shape the how the new monument will be used and managed.
• In Louisiana, the Sierra Club has been working with the communities of the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East for over ten years. New Orleans is highly vulnerable to hurricanes and floods. The Sierra Club is working with the Vietnamese community and others to clean up and restore Bayou Bienvenue and Bayou Sauvage, which provide both recreational opportunities and critical buffering against storms.

In collaboration with the Urban Waters Federal Partnership, Sierra Club is happy to support and grow community-driven conservation efforts. We will connect more people with opportunities to explore, enjoy and protect nearby nature, leaving a downstream legacy that includes healthy communities, clean waters and lifelong constituents for conservation.

The White House on Wednesday released a report outlining the current state of education for Native American students, bleakly declaring that “Native youth — and Native education — are in a state of emergency.”

The report, titled “2014 Native Youth Report,” accompanied an announcement from President Barack Obama that the administration is launching an initiative to increase opportunities for Native American youth, called Generation Indigenous.

Ahniwake Rose, executive director for the National Indian Education Association, called the White House’s new initiative and report “unprecedented,” noting that “this is the first time that a sitting president has talked about Indian education since Kennedy.”

Still, Rose told The Huffington Post that the president’s efforts are just an important first step, and significant progress needs to be made. The White House report offers some reasons for this needed progress, and paints a dim picture of the current status of education for Native American students.

Here are four key findings from the report on the current state and history of Native American education:

1. Even In 1944, Politicians Wanted To Send Native American Students To Boarding Schools To Learn The ‘White Man’s Way Of Life.’

According to the White House report, colonial settlers established the first boarding school for Native American students in 1754. The purpose of these boarding schools was to assimilate the students and effectively eliminate their connections to Native American society and culture, the report says. Parents who refused to send their children to these schools ultimately faced repercussions from the federal government.

“By removing children from the ‘corrupting’ influences of their families and everyday reservation life for years at a time, these institutions usurped Indian parenting responsibilities, tore apart tribal kinship networks, and destroyed the fabric of Indian communities,” the report says.

By the early 1900s, policy towards Native Americans had shifted, with politicians ultimately deciding that tribes should have more sovereignty over their children’s educations. But enthusiasm for this policy shift was not unanimous. Even in 1944, the House Select Committee on Indian Affairs said, “The goal of Indian education should be to make the Indian child a better American rather than to equip him simply to be a better Indian,” recommending that these children return to boarding schools.

2. A Vast Majority Of Native American Students Attend Public Schools

Ninety-two percent of Native American students attend regular public schools, meaning that only a small minority attend schools controlled by the federally funded Bureau of Indian Education (BIE).

The BIE operates 183 schools on 63 reservations for about 42,000 students, according to the report. These students generally perform worse academically than their peers, the report says, with fourth-grade students in BIE schools performing on average 22 points worse in reading on the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) than other Native American students. Still, in 2011, only 18 percent of all Native American students were deemed proficient or above in reading on NAEP, while 42 percent of white students were proficient or above.

3. Many BIE Schools Are In Dismal Condition

The report paints a startling picture of conditions in BIE schools. According to the report, about $967 million is needed to make necessary repairs to BIE schools, and about 30 percent of BIE schools are more than 40 years old. A majority of these schools do not have satisfactory Internet access or enough computers to take assessments aligned with the new Common Core State Standards, the report says.

4. There Is A Lack Of Culturally Relevant Curriculum For Native Students In Schools

Among one of the root causes for low Native American academic achievement is the lack of “culturally relevant curriculum and culturally competent staff that understand how to reach Native youth,” says the report. To rectify this, the report recommends that schools and colleges work to revitalize Native American history and languages in school curriculum.

“Experience suggests that incorporating Native languages and culture into academic settings can improve educational engagement and outcomes. Such practices bolster their identity and self-worth of Native youth by respecting the norms and culture of their families and communities,” says the report.

Indeed, few states have educational standards that teach modern Native American history. According to research from Sarah Shear, an assistant professor of social studies education at Pennsylvania State University in Altoona, nearly 87 percent of state history standards fail to cover Native American history past the year of 1900.

QUEENS — Flanked by top NYPD brass, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday in the wake of a grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer over Eric Garner’s death that police are being retrained to use less force “whenever possible.”

De Blasio appeared at the city’s police academy in Queens to underscore the importance of a force-wide retraining push unveiled by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton after Garner’s July death. Roughly 22,000 officers will receive a three-day tutorial on “smart policing,” including de-escalating situations that seem headed for violence.

“A lot of people, as I said yesterday, felt a lot of pain, felt a lot of frustration,” de Blasio said. “My message to people is take that pain and frustration and work for change, the relationship between police and community has to change. I am fundamentally convinced it will change.”

De Blasio pointed to that training, as well as moves to decrease the use of stop and frisk, end arrests for low-level marijuana possession cases and equip some officers with body-worn cameras, as examples of the change he has ushered in since taking office on Jan. 1.

But as both de Blasio and Bratton acknowledged, the ambitious NYPD reform agenda the mayor campaigned on has been frequently overtaken by events ranging from Garner’s death in July to the shooting last month of an unarmed, innocent man, Akai Gurley, in a public housing stairwell by an apparently startled officer. Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, has further fueled protests over excessive force in New York City.

Underscoring the obstacles to change, the head of the city’s largest police union went on the offensive against de Blasio over an alleged lack of support for Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who killed Garner, and police in general.

Calling Pantaleo a “model” officer and “literally … an Eagle Scout,” Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch referenced a press conference in which de Blasio expressed his sympathy for Garner’s family. ““What police officers felt last night after that press conference is that they were thrown under the bus,” Lynch said.

Pantaleo still faces possible internal discipline at the NYPD, where Bratton could choose to fire him should an internal tribunal find he violated departmental rules while choking Garner. A separate investigation by U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, the current nominee for U.S. Attorney General, could also result in federal civil rights charges.

De Blasio flatly rejected the criticism from Lynch, who is locked in battle with the city over police union contracts.

“I’ve now for this whole year talked about my immense respect for the police department,” de Blasio said. “I think people in this city saw many die who shouldn’t have died, it’s as simple as that. I think it’s important to speak to that reality, particularly when it’s not an isolated reality.”

It’s often hard to imagine the college years ever coming to an end. To think about giving up living down the hall, from all of your closest friends, being able to make it on your $30 per week campus job pay check and having an ID that doubles as a meal plan and laundry card. A huge comfort of being in college is the campus community that surrounds you, but another great part of college is that taking classes outside of your comfort zone and being challenged to push yourself harder than you ever have before.

The thought of going out in to the “real” world and being a productive member of society can be daunting to say the least. The pressure to look for a job straight out of the gate even before senior year starts. We’re encouraged to seek out and fill our summers with “relevant” experiences and are constantly directed to our on-campus career development centers. The words stipend, qualifications and resume, to name just a few, clutter our brains and it’s hard not to feel the pressure of competition pushing from every side, but what we’re failing to remember is that it’s more than okay to take a year or two exploring the “real” world before committing to a long-term job.

The value of experience is incredibly important and often overlooked when we’re in such a tizzy, a rush to secure our future and to live out the “five year plan” that we have in our minds. There is no clearly defined, single, “right” way of doing things. Settling never leads to fulfillment. Sure, sometimes we have to do things that we’re not big fans of, but when it comes to career choices, there’s no need to rush into anything that we’re unsure of. Of course, there’s the pressure of being able to support yourself. It’s possible to work a job that allows you to gain experience and further explore your interests and to have no intention of staying long-term. We all know someone who is chasing their dreams and following their passions before graduation, so why stop once you have the diploma?

These very high expectations lead us to the seemingly inevitable setting, which so often happens to new grads. Before our diplomas are even off the press, deeming us “worthy” of a chance in the job market, we feel like we must be employed, nonetheless to have secured our dream job. The need for higher education is becoming increasingly important. Not too many years ago, a high school education was more than enough to earn a living salary, but nowadays, it’s starting to feel like even an undergraduate degree isn’t enough.

It’s better to take the time to get to know yourself and your options before committing to the time (and debt!) of graduate school or to a job that won’t fill you with passion and fulfill your ambitions. Be open to the opportunities around you, let yourself move into adulthood one step at a time and trust that you’ll know when you’re ready to commit to the right job. Despite popular belief, college prepares you to make the right decisions, whether you’ve noticed it yet or not.

Sara Chuirazzi writes for Unwritten. You can follow her on Twitter @sarazzismiles.

The Nanoport magnetic connector is ready to connect your smartphone to another smartphone to make them both into one big tablet. The folks at Nano Magnetics have a patent pending magnetic connector technology – Nanoport – that’ll be shown off for the first time with a WORKING MODEL at CES 2015. They brought a mock-up to the Consumer Electronics Show … Continue reading