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A Day to RememberFormer high school students recall their personal experiences during the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. By Jack Kirkland, Joe Ahearn, and Ann Marie Atewan

September 11, 2001, started off as an exceptionally warm, yet otherwise ordinary morning in New York City. At 8:46 a. m., many students and teachers were just beginning their first class of the day, when suddenly, their lives—and the lives of many Americans—changed forever. News that an airplane had crashed into one of the

Two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center towers between 8:46 and 9:03 in the morning, while most students were just starting their classes.

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World Trade Center towers in the city’s financial district had spread quickly. People were desperate for updates—particularly on the status of family members and friends who were in the building at the time. Amid the confusion, news of a second airplane crash was reported—this time in the World Trade Center’s second tower. The crashes, it was revealed, were no accident, but an act of terrorism conducted by a violent group named al-Qaeda. By the end of the day, both buildings were destroyed—and almost 2,700 people were killed.

More than a decade has past since the attacks, and although the people of New York have recovered, the memories remain. Here, three former high school students who were in the area during the attacks recall their experiences on that day.

Jack’s StoryThe lights flickered and went out, and then we heard a really loud crash. We ran to the windows and saw tons of people running up the streets from the World Trade Center towers.

I ran to the other side of the school and saw the first building collapsing—it was coming in on itself, and dark black smoke was going everywhere.

The assistant principal ordered all of us to go to our homerooms, then [moments later] he told

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After the North Tower’s collapse, a cloud of thick dust barreled through the streets.

us to walk up the West Side Highway with our teacher. Immediately after leaving the building, we took note of a policeman, who was standing outside, directing people. As we walked forward, he suddenly turned to face us and shouted, “Go back, go back into the school!” We realized why he sounded so alarmed—there was smoke ahead. So we started to head back to the school building, but stopped when we heard him shout a second time—“No, wait, get out of here, run!” That’s when I saw more smoke coming around the other side of the school. This big cloud of black smoke from the second World Trade Center tower was enveloping the whole school.

Jack Kirkland, who was 13 years old in 2001, attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City. His former school is located a mere seven blocks from the World Trade Center site.

Joe’s StoryI was sitting in class when suddenly I heard a huge crash. I looked out the window and there was all this smoke coming [from a building]. The smoke got to be more and more and more, until the windows

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[of our classroom] were so white that you couldn’t see outside at all. The principal said we should start evacuating, and while we were leaving, we heard another crash. Dust started flying toward the school like a big wall. At that point, everyone started running, and I went along with the crowd. I called my dad and he pleaded with me to come home. Fortunately, my house turned out to be OK, but my school was covered in dust and debris.

Right after the attack, it was difficult to plan anything because everyone was frightened and everything seemed so uncertain—you just had to think about [what you were doing], minute by minute. All the stuff that had mattered to me before the attacks was no longer important.

Joe Ahearn, who was 15 years old in 2001, also attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City.

Ann Marie’s StoryWe were in English class [when I] saw a girl coming down the hallway, crying and yelling, “My mom is in that building!” That’s when the principal announced that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

We were all amazed and devastated by the news. Half of my friends were crying because they thought their parents were in one of the towers.

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Then a girl turned to me and said accusingly, “You people did this to us.” The girl ran down the hallway, and I couldn’t say anything.

I couldn’t believe it—they were blaming me, and I didn’t do anything. I was standing right next to them in class when it happened, and I was just as sad as they [were]. I was born here, just like many of them were.

Before the attacks, I felt that the United States was very powerful, but this happened only seven miles away from us. We saw how easy it is, and I worry that it could happen again.

Ann Marie Atewan, who is of Egyptian heritage, was a 14-year-old student at Rutherford High School in Rutherford, New Jersey in 2001. The school is located approximately 12 miles from the World Trade Center site. Because many of the al-Qaeda members responsible for the attacks were Middle Eastern, many innocent people of Middle Eastern descent, like Ann Marie, were wrongfully mistreated out of fear and anger.

Photos: p. 1: © Brad Rickerby/Reuters; p. 3br: © Doug Kanter/AFP/Getty Images

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Nelson Mandela is remembered for his � ght to end segregation in South Africa.

A Heroic LifeNelson Mandela is remembered worldwide as a champion of equality.By Joe Bubar

Nelson Mandela—a former president of South Africa —may have died in 2013, but people around the world still celebrate his life. For years, this civil-rights hero fought to end segregation in his country.

a champion of equality.

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Fighting for Fairness Mandela was a leader in the fight to end apartheid, a brutal system in South Africa that kept black people segregated from white people. In a country where most people are black, only whites could vote. Blacks couldn’t socialize with whites or even travel outside their own neighborhoods without the government’s permission.

In the 1950s, Mandela became the leader of an anti-apartheid group called the African National Congress. That made him a target of the government. In 1964, after being accused of trying to help overthrow the government, he was sentenced to life in prison.

But even from his prison cell on Robben Island, Mandela fought for justice. He was in regular contact with South Africa’s president, F. W. de Klerk. For years, the South African government met with Mandela and other black leaders in secret to discuss how to solve the country’s problems.

Finally, in 1990, de Klerk began taking steps toward ending apartheid. After 27 years in prison, Mandela, then 71 years old, was a free man.

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“Never Again” In 1993, Mandela, de Klerk, and other leaders wrote a new constitution that guaranteed equal rights for all South Africans. The same year, Mandela and de Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work.

Mandela was elected president the following year, when black South Africans were allowed to vote for the fi rst time. In his fi rst speech as president, he said, “Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.”

Mandela served as South Africa’s fi rst black president from 1994 to 1999. After he left offi ce, Mandela continued to speak out against injustice in his own country and abroad. To many, he will always be a symbol of peace and equality.

“I am one of the countless millions who drew inspiration from Nelson Mandela’s life,” said President Barack Obama. “I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set.”p. 1: © Walter Dhladhla/AFP/Getty Images; p. 3: © Themba Hadebe/AP Images.

In 1993, black South Africans voted for the fi rst time.

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Marian Bechtel created a bomb detector for her science-fair project!

Bomb DetectorA student thinks up a new way to fi nd land mines—before they explode.By Jacqueline Adams

Over the years, warring soldiers have buried an estimated 100 million land mines—small bombs that detonate when someone steps on them or trips a hidden wire. The goal of land mines is to kill or severely injure enemy soldiers and terrorize civilians. After wars end, workers try to remove unexploded land mines, but they’re extremely diffi cult to detect.

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Marian Bechtel, a student at Bryn Mawr School, first learned about the problem from her cousins who live in Mozambique. On car trips, they wouldn’t leave the road for a bathroom break for fear of stepping on land mines. Later, Marian had an idea for a land-mine-detection device. Her invention earned her a finalist spot in the 2012 Intel Science Talent Search—and could someday help protect people around the world from the hidden danger.

Under the Radar While conducting her research, Marian learned that there are many ways to detect land mines, but each one has limitations. For example, metal detectors can be used, but they produce many false alarms—and that slows down the process. Another method involves sending electromagnetic waves into the ground. These energy waves bounce off buried land mines to reveal their location—but only when the soil is dry. People have also trained dogs—and even giant African pouched rats—to sniff out land mines. The snag: some mines are plastic and are sealed so tightly that the animals can’t pick up the scent of explosives.

Good Vibrations One day, Marian was thinking about these

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challenges while playing the piano in her school’s music room. “I noticed that when I played certain chords or notes on the piano, the strings on a nearby banjo would resonate,” she says. “I thought, ‘Hey, maybe I can use the same principle to detect buried land mines.’”

Her idea: use a device to send out sound waves that would make buried objects vibrate. Then, she could listen for the vibrations of land mines with a detection device.

Once Marian had a plan, she got to work. To send out the sound waves, she would use a tool that construction workers insert into the ground to shake bubbles out of drying concrete. To listen for vibrations, she would attach microphones to the bottom of an old metal detector. The microphones would pick up vibrations from buried objects. She would hear the sounds by using a pair of headphones. Marian wired her device so it would cancel out the sounds from everything other than buried land mines.

Land mines are a problem in war-torn countries.

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Detecting Danger Marian had to make many adjustments to her invention, such as changing the microphones’ height, before she was satisfied with it. Finally, her device was able to detect mock land mines—metal mint tins and plastic candy containers filled with silicone rubber.

While other land-mine-detection devices on the market have trouble distinguishing land mines from rocks and shrapnel, Marian’s invention could tell them apart. Land mines vibrate well; rocks don’t.

Another plus: unlike radar devices, acoustic sensors such as Marian’s work best in wet conditions, because sound waves travel easily through water.

Marian still has a lot of work to do before her device can be used in the field, but she hopes that her ideas will improve land-mine detection. Consider the lives that could be saved because of the ideas of one high school student!

p. 1: © Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images; p. 3: © Marian Bechtel.

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Caption TK

Could You Be a Hero?Meet a teen who discovered her superpowers in a life-or-death situation. Then learn how to fi nd your own inner strength.By Elizabeth Svoboda

It seemed like an ordinary bus ride home from school for Graceanne Rumer. At the time, she was 17. “It was a few days before midterms, and I was really worn out,” Graceanne recalls. “I got on the bus and told one of my friends, ‘I’m so tired, I just want to go to sleep.’”

Graceanne Rumer is a hero—she saved a school bus full of people.

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But within a few moments, Graceanne was jolted awake. The bus driver had passed out and the school bus was veering out of control—straight into the oncoming lane of traffic. Graceanne was gripped by panic. Still, she managed to take action. She rushed to the front of the bus, grabbed the wheel to steer the bus away from oncoming cars, and then pulled safely to the side of the road. Basically, she went on superhero autopilot. “I didn’t think,” she says. “I just kind of did it.”

The Hero Spectrum To understand how ordinary people like Graceanne become heroes, it helps to think of heroism as a range of helpful acts. On one end of the spectrum, you have feats of “everyday heroism,” like helping someone cross the street. These good deeds are relatively low-risk. And on the other end, you have high-stakes heroism, like rescuing someone from a burning building.

Phil Zimbardo, a pioneer in hero research, has found that people who volunteer on a regular basis are also more likely to behave heroically. By flexing that generosity muscle so often, they may be strengthening it, making them more likely to take a grand heroic action, even when it means facing personal risk. That means you can give

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yourself “hero-in-training” assignments: smile at the homeless man you pass on your way to school, tell a great teacher how much she means to you, or stick up for a kid in your class who’s getting bullied.

Scientists are still studying the connections between everyday generosity and high-stakes heroism, but real-life examples do point to a link. After the Boston Marathon bombings, for example, many doctors and nurses rushed into the fray to aid victims. They didn’t have to pause and figure out what to do—devoting themselves to others day-in and day-out was perfect preparation.

Getting Schooled It might seem unlikely that you could learn to be a hero the same way you learn Spanish or math, but Zimbardo and others believe you can. Zimbardo founded the Heroic Imagination Project (HIP), a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to helping ordinary people become everyday heroes.

Studies show that people who do volunteer work are likely to act in heroic ways.

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Zimbardo and his HIP colleagues have devised a “heroic education” curriculum for high school students. Future heroes learn about obstacles that may hold them back from behaving selflessly. People are less likely to help when many others are in the vicinity—a phenomenon known as the “bystander effect.” Peer pressure can also come into play. But being aware of a mental obstacle can be half the battle.

Participants in the HIP programs felt it upped their potential by teaching them to push past their own resistance. One hero-in-training even stepped in when he saw a bus rider having an asthma attack. Though nobody else tried to help, the student remembered what he’d learned at the HIP and realized he didn’t want to fall prey to the bystander effect. He got the driver to stop and led the wheezing rider off the bus for help.

Can You Help? Could you put yourself on the line for someone else? By being kind and connecting to others on a daily basis, you may find yourself ready to step up in the same seemingly effortless way that a superhero does. When the time comes for you to shine, only you will know how you had been purposely working toward your moment all along.

p. 1: © Jeff Fusco/Getty Images for Scholastic Inc.; p. 3: © KidStock/Getty Images.

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Orangutans at the Toronto Zoo interact with tablets.

Going Ape Over AppsComputer apps and tablets are revealing how apes think!By Amy Barth

Jingga leans forward and scrolls through pictures on a tablet computer, her long, reddish-brown hair framing her face. She’s keeping an eye out for photos of adorable puppies and kittens, which are some of her favorite things to look at.

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Lots of us spend time looking at cute baby animals online. But Jingga isn’t just any redheaded girl. She’s an orangutan at the Toronto Zoo in Canada.

“The orangutans love baby animals,” says Suzanne MacDonald, a professor who studies animal behavior at the zoo. “It’s funny because they’ve never even seen a puppy or kitten, but just like us, they can’t resist looking at them!”

She also found that some young males can be scared by photos of older and bigger male orangutans. One young male got so scared he leapt back several feet and grabbed a stick. “After that, he refused to use the screen without a stick for protection,” says MacDonald.

Touch screens have become a quick and inexpensive way for scientists like MacDonald to design experiments. By letting orangutans choose what pictures to look at, she can observe their likes and dislikes.

Tuning Out MacDonald has also used touch screens to learn about the musical preferences of apes. She designed a music program that used color codes for different kinds of music—rock, children’s

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songs, or country. The apes were able to scroll through the colors and pick whatever music they wanted to hear. They could also select a code if they wanted to hear silence.

While observing the orangutans interact with her program, MacDonald noticed something shocking. “When you give them a choice, they almost always choose to turn the music off,” says MacDonald.

The finding seemed especially strange to MacDonald because previous studies had shown that most animals enjoy the sound of music. This caused her to theorize that orangutans perceive music as noise.

To test her theory, she offered the apes a treat for selecting a song instead of scrambled music, which sounded like noise. However, the apes still couldn’t tell the difference.

“We’ve run the test thousands of times, and no matter what we do, they can’t hear the difference

Apes may one day use mobile devices to communicate.

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between music and noise,” says MacDonald. “From a zoo standpoint, that’s really important. Almost every zoo in the world plays music because they think the animals like it, but it now seems the orangutans prefer to turn it off.”

Beating Boredom Suzanne MacDonald isn’t the only person who’s observed orangutans interacting with technology. Animal activist Rich Zimmerman has also taken note. Zimmerman founded Orangutan Outreach, a conservation organization in New York. It helps save orangutans threatened by hunting and deforestation (the clearing of forests where the apes live).

In 2010, an Orangutan Outreach supporter showed his tablet computer to orangutans at the Milwaukee County Zoo. “They loved watching videos,” says Zimmerman. “They were also fascinated by a bubble app that lets users burst bubbles by poking at them.”

According to Zimmerman, this discovery has major implications for orangutans in zoos. “Apes are some of the most intelligent animals in the world. When they’re kept in captivity without challenges like finding food or protecting themselves from predators, they

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can easily become restless and unhappy,” says Zimmerman. “But thanks to these tablets, that problem is solved.”

Video Chats Zimmerman’s next goal is to arrange video chats for orangutans so that they can communicate with friends and relatives at other zoos. Many apes are separated from family when they’re moved for breeding. This will allow them to communicate with relatives they miss.

“The idea is all creatures should be able to communicate using the right technology,” says Zimmerman. “Now that it exists, let’s see what animals do with it.”

p. 1: © Tom Pandi/Orangutan Outreach Apps 4 Apes; p. 3: © Randy Olson/National Geographic Creative.

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I Printed My RobohandLearn how 3-D printing changed Leon McCarthy’s life—and is revolutionizing manufacturing.By Laura Anastasia

Leon McCarthy was born without fi ngers on his left hand, but the impairment doesn’t slow him down—especially now. The ninth-grader

Leon created his own prosthetic hand using a 3-D printer.

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from Marblehead, Massachusetts, recently got a prosthetic hand. He can open and close the robotic fingers just by raising or lowering his wrist. He can even hold a pencil and draw pictures. However, the coolest thing about Leon’s robotic hand is that he made it himself!

Leon built his prosthetic device with the help of a 3-D printer. These high-tech machines print three-dimensional objects using plastic, ceramic, metal or glass as “ink.” Most 3-D printers heat thin plastic tubing and squeeze it out of a nozzle into layers as thin as a piece of paper. They then print hundreds of thousands of layers, one on top of another, until a complete object is formed. A small object, such as a cell phone case, takes about 30 minutes to print.

Leon got the idea for his prosthesis after seeing a video of a boy using a “robohand.” Leon found the blueprint and printing instructions online. The parts took about 10 hours to print. “Then my dad and I had to build them into a hand,” says Leon. “We call it the Frankenstein hand because it has a really big bolt sticking out of the side,” he says.

3-D printers have actually been around for commercial use since the 1980s. Companies first used them to create prototypes of new products.

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Doctors now use 3-D printers to create prostheses and replacement body parts, including ears and jawbones. Museums print 3-D replicas of statues and fossils. Scientists are experimenting with how to print food for astronauts.

Worth the Price Home use of 3-D printers is skyrocketing in popularity thanks to lower prices and better technology. The printers cost from about $350 to $2,000. People use them to print everything from sneakers to missing game-board pieces—and they save money doing it, says Joshua Pearce, a professor at Michigan Technological University. He recently compared the cost of buying household goods with creating them with a 3-D printer. Printing 20 common items, including a spatula and garlic press, would cost $18. Buying those same items online would cost more than $300. “It simply costs people less money to make things for themselves,” says Pearce.

Users don’t have to be computer whizzes to print objects either. “There are more than 125,000

3-D printers can print many different things, like this toy rabbit.

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free designs you can download from many different sites,” Pearce says. Users can tweak the designs to fit their needs.

Those advantages are benefiting businesses as well. Companies can now print products on demand instead of spending money up front to manufacture and store extra inventory. Industrial 3-D printers lower costs, reduce waste, and speed up production. For example, one major company now prints nozzles for its new jet engines. The company used to make each nozzle by welding 20 separate pieces together. 3-D printers produce the new nozzles as one complete piece. The printed nozzles are faster to make, five times as strong, and lighter than the old version.

Printing the Future As more companies embrace the technology, experts predict that the face of manufacturing will change entirely. Factories once filled with workers may instead have a few technicians overseeing 3-D printers. Companies could manufacture more products in the United States instead of outsourcing work to China, India, and other developing nations where labor is less costly.

3-D printers have the potential to bring about a lot of good, such as feeding people

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with 3-D-printed food and building shelters for those who are homeless. Leon plans to use his newfound knowledge to design even better prosthetic hands for other kids like him. “It feels good because I’m completing people,” he says.

p. 1: © Steven Vote; p. 3: © MakerBot®.

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Harvey Milk made it his mission to improve the lives of gay men and women.

Man on a MissionWhen Harvey Milk was elected to offi ce, he broke barriers—and changed the country. By Nancy Honovich

In 1977, politician Harvey Milk made history when he became the fi rst openly gay offi cial elected to the city government in San Francisco, California.

Milk’s election shocked many Americans. At the time, gay people had few rights. Employers

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could fire gay employees, landlords could evict gay tenants, and banks could deny loans to gay customers. In addition, gay people were often threatened with violence, and some were actually beaten.

Time for Change Milk hoped to change these attitudes. As a city official, he was the driving force behind a law that banned unequal treatment of people based on their sexual orientation. At his urging, the city announced a drive to hire more gay and lesbian police officers. He also started programs that benefitted gay people as well as all minorities, workers, and the elderly.

However, one of Milk’s biggest achievements was his role in defeating a state senate proposal that would have prohibited gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools. This achievement brought Milk national attention and inspired hope among gay people and their supporters across the United States.

Tragedy Strikes Not everyone was in favor of Milk’s political agenda. In 1978, tragedy struck. Dan White, a former city supervisor, quit his job after clashes with Milk and the city’s mayor, George Moscone.

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In 2014, the US Postal Service issued a stamp in Harvey Milk’s honor.

White snuck into City Hall and then shot and killed both Milk and Moscone.

This horrifi c act of violence shocked the country. Supporters of gay and lesbian rights wondered if this would provoke offi cials to overturn the laws that Milk worked tirelessly to pass.

A Legacy Lives OnHowever, Milk’s legacy proved too great to ignore. In the long run, Harvey Milk had a powerful impact on the gay community and the public’s perception of it. Since his death, other openly gay offi cials have been elected to offi ce, and many states have recognized marriage equality.

Today, the country celebrates Harvey Milk in many ways. Each year, San Francisco holds a memorial parade in his honor, schools and federal buildings have been named after him, and movies and operas have been made about his life. In addition, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Milk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

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During the ceremony, Obama stated: “His relentless devotion to breaking down barriers and lifting up fellow citizens sets a standard to which we all should strive.”

p. 1: © Lou Dematteis/Redux; p. 3tr: © U.S. Postal Service/AP Image

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Saving the Great White MonsterThe great white shark is among the most feared animals in the world. But it’s also one of the most important to our oceans.By Lauren Tarshis

Imagine that you are the most feared creature in the ocean: the great white shark. Even six-ton killer whales aren’t always safe around you.

Sharks have a killer reputation, but they’re no match for one predator: humans.

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You strike from below, speeding toward prey like an underwater missile, hitting with the full force of your 4,000-pound body, knocking your prey senseless.

And then—CHOMP!

Your jaw, three times as strong as that of a lion, is one of nature’s most devastating weapons, with more than 300 teeth lined up in jagged rows. One snap could kill a creature many times your size.

But with high intelligence and a curious nature, you’re more than a killing machine. You can travel more than 10,000 miles per year. You know the depths of the Pacific and the white sands of the Atlantic.

In addition, you are incredibly important to the world’s oceans. As the apex predator, the animal at the top of the food chain, you keep the ocean in balance.

But now, you’re in danger: about 100 million sharks have been killed each year in the past decade. In some regions, sharks no longer thrive, and some species— including great whites—are in danger of planetwide extinction.

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What brutal creature is destroying these apex predators? Humans.

Killing for Soup Why would humans hunt sharks? The answer is tied to a Chinese delicacy called shark-fin soup. This watery broth, filled with stringy strands of shark fin, is very popular in China, where it can sell for $300 per bowl. The soup is not known for its tastiness; rather, it is served to impress guests at important occasions.

For centuries, only a small number of people from China were wealthy enough to afford the soup. Today, millions can afford such luxuries. As a result, the demand for the soup has risen—and consequently, so has the need for shark fins to make it.

On any given day, thousands of fishing boats are out prowling the oceans for sharks. Some boats can catch 100 sharks in a single day. Many fishermen don’t bother to bring the sharks back to shore: they hack off the fins at sea and leave the sharks to die in the ocean. As a result, the

Shark-fin soup is a delicacy in China.

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population of some shark species has dropped a whopping 99 percent!

Attacks Are Rare In recent years, an organization called WildAid started working on this problem. The organization, founded by conservationist Peter Knights, is one of several wildlife groups working to save the planet’s many endangered species.

Officials at WildAid knew that saving sharks is a hard sell. People shudder when they look at a photo of a great white—the blood-red mouth, jagged teeth, and dead black eyes. In addition, few people from China understood what their appetite for shark-fin soup was doing to the shark population.

So, WildAid enlisted some of China’s biggest celebrities, like former basketball player Yao Ming and actor Jackie Chan, to raise awareness. Thanks to their campaigning, the government of China banned shark-fin soup from official banquets, and as a result, the number of shark fins imported into China has dropped by nearly 30 percent.

A Change in Sight With fewer people wanting shark-fin soup, fishermen will no longer be able to sell many

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fins. Soon, experts hope, fins will be all but worthless—and fishermen will have no reason to hunt sharks. Activist Peter Knights reflected, “The success of the WildAid campaign shows that even difficult problems can be solved with creative thinking and hope.”

p. 1: © Mike Parry/Minden Pictures; p. 3: © Lcc54613/Getty Images.

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Sí Se Puede!Dolores Huerta stood up for farmworkers when no one else would. By Sarah Rehman

Dolores Huerta learned early on about the struggles that many people had to endure. Huerta grew up in Stockton, California during the 1930s—a time when the US economy was fl ailing. Many local people were unemployed, while those who did have jobs were treated poorly by their employers.

Dolores Huerta tried to improve working conditions for farmworkers.

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Although Huerta was young at the time, she saw and understood the challenges many people faced—particularly those people who worked on farms.

“Many of these people were migrant works who were paid poorly and had to work in unsafe and unsanitary conditions,” recalls Huerta. “The workers didn’t know how to stand up for themselves, and there were no unions to advocate for them.”

Firm Ground Huerta wanted to help but initially didn’t know how. She resolved to pursue a degree in education; her idea was to become a teacher so that she could educate the children of farmworkers and teach them how to live better lives. But after her first few days in the classroom, she realized she had made a mistake. Impoverished children were coming to class hungry and without shoes. Huerta realized that she had to change things—but couldn’t do so in the classroom.

“I thought I could do more by organizing farmworkers than by trying to teach their hungry children,” said Huerta. “So I quit my job.”

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Huerta (left) and César Chávez (center) organized a union for farmworkers.

Gaining Traction Soon, Huerta began working as an organizer for the Stockton Community Service Organization (CSO), where she set up voter registration drives, battled discrimination, and pushed local governments to improve the barrios (areas that are often high-poverty and low-income with Spanish-speaking residents). While at the CSO, Huerta met fellow activist César E. Chávez, who shared her dream of organizing farmworkers. Together, they started a union called the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), now called the United Farm Workers (UFW).

A Growing Movement In 1965, the UFW learned that grape growers in Delano, California underpaid farmworkers and refused to improve their work conditions. So the UFW took action by going on strike and encouraging people to boycott, or refuse to buy, grapes.

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The UFW’s actions caused grape sales to decline. Eventually, California Governor Jack Williams grew concerned about the economy, so in 1972, he signed legislation prohibiting farmworkers from going on strike or boycotting during harvest seasons.

Suddenly, farmworkers felt powerless to change things—they said, “No se puede,” “No, it can’t be done.” However, Huerta disagreed and rallied the workers with a fiery response: “¡Sí, sí se puede!,” “Yes, it can be done!”

The farmworkers continued their boycott, and by the mid-1970s, news stations had picked up the story. Soon, 17 million Americans—sympathetic to the farmworkers’ needs—were boycotting grapes! Grape sales plummeted, and as a result, growers conceded to workers’ demands. The farmworkers won their rights!

A Rewarding Life Huerta’s victory was one of many to come. Long after the boycott, she continued to lobby for notable causes. Her work has improved the lives of thousands of people. In 2012, President Obama honored Dolores Huerta with the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom, the

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highest civilian award, for her lifelong devotion to seeking social and political justice for minorities and women.

“It was a humbling experience—especially considering all the people who were trying to get justice for the farmworkers,” said Huerta of the award. “I felt this honor was for everyone who tried to make life a little better for the people who feed us.”

p. 1: © George Ballis/Take Stock/The Image Works; p. 3: © William James Warren/Getty Images SI SE PUEDE is a registered trademark of the United Farm Workers of America.

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In 1960, four men staged a peaceful protest by sitting at a lunch counter.

Sitting Down to Take a StandPeaceful protests played a big role in the civil rights movement.By Suzanne Bilyeu

Imagine a scenario in which you were legally barred from taking a drink at the same water fountain that other people were free to drink from. Or think for a moment about how you would feel to be forced to sit at the back of a bus

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because of the color of your skin. It may seem surreal today, but before the 1950s, those were the kinds of unfair laws that African Americans were subject to everyday in many US states.

Free but Separate Until the Civil War, most African Americans were slaves. After the war ended in 1865, slavery was abolished and African Americans were officially free. But almost 100 years later, that didn’t appear to be the case—it seemed that few things had really changed. Many African Americans remained segregated from whites and still lacked many basic civil rights. This was especially true in the southern United States, where many whites didn’t think blacks and whites should mix—they did not believe that black people deserved the same rights as whites.

Over time, thousands of black Americans had had enough: they began to take a stand, and some did so in the most unconventional way—by sitting down!

The Fight for Civil Rights African Americans fought for their rights by marching in peaceful protests and by boycotting businesses that discriminated against them. They

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also staged sit-ins: they sat in public places that were reserved for “whites only,” and when told to leave, these civil-rights activists refused to move.

That’s what happened in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960. Four black college students sat at the “whites only” lunch counter in a department store. “We absolutely had no choice,” one later said vehemently.

The students weren’t served any food, and the store manager asked them to leave—but the students refused. They could have been arrested, and they could have been beaten, but they were just ignored. The students remained there unbudging until the store closed.

The Tide Turns The four young men came to be known as the Greensboro Four. Word of their struggle spread on television and in newspapers across the country. Their protest inspired thousands of people, and more sit-ins were staged throughout the South.

During the 1960s, many people marched to protest laws that were unfair to African Americans.

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Eventually, the lunch counter in Greensboro began serving black customers. Other businesses also stopped discriminating, and in 1964, racial segregation in public places finally became illegal. The civil rights movement could not have succeeded without the courage of the Greensboro Four.

p. 1: © John G. Moebes/Corbis; p. 3: National Archives Special Media Division.

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Sonia Nazario wrote several articles about a boy who rode on top of a train.

Taking RisksSonia Nazario risks her life to tell a story. By Inez Prieto

For some journalists, research means interviewing people and surfing the Internet for information. However, that’s not the case with Los Angeles Times project reporter Sonia Nazario. For Nazario, research means living the story that she is investigating.

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Enrique’s Journey In 2003, Nazario won national acclaim for “Enrique’s Journey,” a series of articles about a poor teenage boy named Enrique from Honduras, a country in Central America. Throughout the series, Nazario chronicles Enrique’s quest to reunite with a mother who left him at the age of five to find work in the United States. During his quest north, a penniless Enrique rode the tops of freight trains. The endeavor was dangerous for several reasons. Many people have been killed by riding the tops of trains—either by being pulled under the wheels or by falling off. In addition, gangsters often ride such trains searching for unsuspecting people to beat and rob.

Living the Story To understand her subject and his ordeal, Nazario did something very dangerous: she risked her life by riding the top of a freight train and subjecting herself to potential attacks!

Nazario explained her motivation: “I wanted readers to feel like they were sitting on the train next to Enrique as he made his journey. To get that narrative detail, I had to go on the same journey. It was very hard—I was nearly robbed and was nearly swiped off the train by a branch.

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“Enrique’s Journey” earned Sonia Nazario a Pulitzer Prize for journalism.

I thought it was an important story to tell as powerfully as possible.”

The Public Responds While Nazario almost died in the process, her efforts were ultimately rewarded. In 2003, she won a Pulitzer Prize for the series and was later asked to adapt the articles into a book. In addition, readers were so inspired by her work that they donated money to build schools and homes for the poor in Honduras and other Central American countries.

“It’s been an unbelievable experience,” said Nazario.

p. 1: © Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times; p. 3: Courtesy Sonia Nazario

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Students at East Orange Campus High School in New Jersey make music in unusual ways.

A Different Kind of RhythmA high school band in New Jersey is making music with plastic buckets!By Missy Shepherd

Audiences in New Jersey are tapping their toes and clapping their hands to music performed by a very unusual high school band. This band doesn’t use traditional instruments, such as flutes, tubas,

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or trombones. Instead, students make music by pounding out rhythms on overturned five-gallon paint buckets. The result is musical magic!

Feeling the BeatThe band, from East Orange Campus High School in Newark, New Jersey, is called the Jaguar Bucket Ensemble, after their school’s mascot. Music teacher Patrick O’Donnell formed the group in 2008. O’Donnell got the idea after watching Stomp and Blue Man Group—two off-Broadway shows that feature performers who use everyday objects as percussion instruments.

The Jaguar Bucket Ensemble has 45 members—students ranging from Grades 10 to 12. Many of them have no musical experience. Most of these students joined the group just to fulfill a high school music requirement, but after just a few sessions, the students became hooked on the joy of making music. “You can hear it. You can feel it—you enjoy yourself while you’re playing,” said former band member Kwamel Abram.

Making MusicTo make music, the students play their buckets with drumsticks. They learn to vary sounds by beating on different parts of the drum. They tap rhythms along the edge of the bucket or parts of

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A student strikes PVC pipes to make a xylophone-like sound.

the bucket’s surface. Sometimes they pick up their buckets and hit the floor with them!

In addition to plastic buckets, the students make music with a xylophone-like instrument made from PVC pipes. The pipes are usually used as water pipes in buildings, but the Jaguar Bucket Ensemble uses them to make great music! Band members also play bamboo wind chimes and traditional percussion instruments like triangles and cymbals.

Practice Makes PerfectLearning to play these unusual instruments isn’t easy; it takes a lot of work and dedication. Students in the band must practice together every day for about two to three hours. But for the band members, it’s worth it. “It makes me feel like I can actually do something,” says band member Ambar Terrero.

The hard work has also influenced students in other ways. “Their attendance is better, their performance [in class] is better, and so is their

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behavior,” says assistant principal, Lois Perkins. “When they do something that they’re excited about, they always do much better in school.”

Super Set ListSo, what might audience members expect during a Jaguar Bucket Ensemble show? The students often perform works written by well-known composers. For example, they do a percussion version of Jamaican musician Bob Marley’s song “One Love,” as well as “Rock Trap” by American composer William J. Schinstine.

The Jaguar Bucket Ensemble also does original works that Mr. O’Donnell composed for the group. During one piece, called “Bicycle,” students make music with bicycle horns and by scraping drumsticks across the spokes of a bicycle wheel. The sound of a basketball dribbled on stage provides additional rhythm.

Fan FavoritesJaguar Bucket Ensemble’s skill and versatility has made them a sought-after act. The group has performed with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Newark Boys Choir at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

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In both venues, the crowds went wild—and the musicians couldn’t be more thrilled. “It’s really cool seeing everybody clap for you and cheer for you,” says band member James Bond.

Photos: p. 1: © Ruby Washington/The New York Times/Redux; p. 3: © Ruby Washington/The New York Times/Redux

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Bat Bots!Will robotic bats be the next rescue heroes? Experts are counting on it! By Clinton Jefferson

Rescue workers may soon use a new kind of robot to help save people in trouble. The robots can get into and fly around small spaces that people can’t reach—and they do it by moving like bats!

Scientists are developing search-and-rescue robots that are modeled after bats, like the one shown on the left.

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Amazing FlyersThe robots are being developed by engineers at North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh, North Carolina. The engineers chose to model their invention after bats because of the animals’ small size and flying abilities.

“Most bats have tiny bodies and fast-flapping wings that enable them to navigate thick forests and small caves without crashing,” says engineer Stefan Seelecke. “This makes them a great model for tiny flying machines that must maneuver in small spaces.”

Copying Nature’s DesignsTo make the robots fly like bats, the engineers based their designs on the bodies of bats. The robot contains joints made from a combination of metals that bend like real bat joints, as well as muscles made from tiny wires. These muscles can tighten or loosen, so that the bat bot’s wings flap just like a real bat’s wings.

Together, these joints and muscles allow the robots to dart through the air and change direction quickly. “This would be extremely helpful in rescue situations,” adds Seelecke.

To the RescueSo, how could the bat bots help rescuers? According

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to Seelecke, the robots could be sent into buildings that have been destroyed by earthquakes or other disasters to look for trapped people. Their tiny bodies would allow them to fit into crevices that are too small for rescue workers. The bat bots could also be sent into large, dense forests to search for lost hikers. In addition, they could pick up the cell-phone signals of lost or injured people—something a human rescue worker would not be able to do.

Bat bots’ special skills may help with more than just rescues. Police and military workers could send the robots into buildings where dangerous activities are taking place. Sensors on the bat bots could tell if materials used to make bombs are around. The robots could record videos and collect other information, too. However we use bat bots, they are sure to help in important ways.

“The possibilities are endless,” said Seelecke.

Photo: p. 1: © Breuer/Swartz Labs, Brown University/WENN.com/Newscom

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Nicole Maines—shown here with her twin brother, Jonas—was born a boy.

Becoming NicoleAfter Nicole Maines was barred from entering both the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms, she and her family took action.By Siobhán McGowan

When teenager Nicole Maines was a kid, she often played with dolls, while her twin brother, Jonas, was more into sports. No one seemed to mind. Maybe it was because she was just a kid. But as Nicole got older, some people began to pay

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closer attention to her interests, and questioned her preferences. Why?

Nicole Maines was actually born a boy named Wyatt. Since the age of two, Wyatt had self-identified as a girl. He’d beg his mom to let him dress up in sparkly tutus and grow his hair long. The twins’ dad, Wayne, initially struggled with the issue until he realized that his child needed his acceptance and support. Their mom, Kelly, worried too, but her determination to raise happy, healthy children trumped any concerns she had about the matter. As for Jonas? “I never questioned it—it just made sense to me,” says Jonas of his twin.

So, the family made an important decision—they changed Wyatt’s name to Nicole before the start of fifth grade.

“I am transgender,” Nicole states proudly, “and I knew that I was for as long as I can remember.”

Facing Challenges Not everyone at the twins’ rural Maine middle school was as understanding as Nicole’s family. In September 2007, a male classmate, who noticed Nicole enter the girls’ restroom, called attention to the fact that she was, biologically, a boy. That’s when a controversy erupted—Nicole knew she

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did not belong in the boys’ bathroom, but many parents were afraid. They thought her presence in the girls’ bathroom was unacceptable, and as a result, the Maine school district ordered Nicole to use the teachers’ bathroom only.

“Just me, no one else,” Nicole says. “I was isolated and effectively classified as ‘other.’ My school and community treated me like a second-class citizen.”

Fighting for Acceptance Five years of legal battles followed, with Nicole and her parents suing the state of Maine for her right to use the girls’ restroom, and others proposing laws that would force her back into the boys’ room. As the battle waged on, Nicole’s family became concerned for her safety, so they moved to a town more than three hours away, and the twins started over in a different school.

“In our new town, I didn’t tell anyone that I was transgender,” Nicole says. “At school, I used the girls’ bathroom every day, and during gym and track meets I used the girls’ locker room with no fanfare.

With the support of her mother (left), and other family members, Nicole took her case to court.

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There was only one problem—I felt like I wasn’t being completely myself. I didn’t feel like I was lying, but it was hard to not be able to share such a big part of my life.”

In the meantime, Nicole’s case continued to make its way through the courts. Finally, on January 30, 2014, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court reached a decision. They ruled that Nicole’s previous school had violated Maine’s Human Rights Act by prohibiting her from using the student restrooms. The groundbreaking decision marked the first time a state’s highest court ruled that a transgender person has the right to use the restroom of the gender with which they identify. It was a big win for transgender students.

“My family and friends cried happy tears,” Nicole recalls. “I felt that I was being acknowledged as an equal to my classmates and to the rest of my community, and no longer second class.”

A New Life After the court’s decision, Nicole felt better than ever about moving forward with her transition. In the summer of 2015, before she began college, she successfully underwent gender reassignment surgery. Since then, her story has been told in the book Becoming Nicole, by Pulitzer Prize-winning

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author Amy Ellis Nutt, and she’s been honored for her advocacy by top magazines and several civil rights organizations. “It’s nice to finally be able to have a voice,” she remarks. “It’s hard when you feel like you don’t have a say in your own life.”

Photos: p. 1: © Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images; p. 3tr: © Robert F. Bukaty/AP Images

Music performer Beyoncé has come a long way from her humble beginnings in Houston, Texas.

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Beyoncé: The Story Behind Her SuccessA music legend reveals the secret to her super success—and it just may surprise you. By Katrin Bennhold and Katie Hafner

Her albums top the charts, her videos are groundbreaking, and her voice is legendary.

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Beyoncé Knowles—or simply “Beyoncé”—is among the hottest stars in the music industry today. So, what’s the secret to her success? According to the artist, it’s a combination of talent, hard work, and humility.

Straight to the TopAs a little girl growing up in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé always wanted to be a performer. Although she had natural abilities, she never took her talent for granted. She practiced singing with a voice teacher and polished her dance moves with the help of a choreographer. Some days, she would even run a mile while belting a tune—she felt that was a good way to build the stamina necessary to sing and dance at the same time.

The hard work ultimately paid off when Beyoncé joined three other girls to form a music group called Destiny’s Child. The group signed with a major record label in 1996, and over the course of nine years sold more than 60 million records!

By 2005, Beyoncé was ready for her next challenge. She left the group to embark on a solo career. Since her departure from Destiny’s Child, the singer has recorded more than five albums and has sold more than 46 million records. The music critics have been as impressed as the

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fans. They have awarded Beyoncé with more than 175 awards—including 20 Grammy Awards and a Video Vanguard Award for lifetime achievement.

Giving BackIn spite of her super stardom, Beyoncé has managed to stay grounded—something she attributes largely to her charitable work.

“I watched my parents get involved in community charities, and that taught me how important it is to ‘give ’til it hurts,’” she said.

In addition to donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to various nonprofit groups, Beyoncé has created her own charitable organization. In 2005, she founded the Survivor Foundation with her family members and former Destiny’s Child bandmate, Kelly Rowland. The foundation helps families who have been affected by natural disasters. In addition, Beyoncé has performed numerous concerts to raise awareness for hunger. During these shows, she encourages fans to bring

In 2014, Beyoncé teamed up with numerous charities to bring food to impoverished families in her hometown—Houston, Texas.

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food products, which concert organizers then deliver to food banks that service people who are hungry. She hopes that the experience inspires fans to do more.

“Once it’s in your heart to give, you’ll have to give,” she says. “I am a happy woman—very happy—because I know that I’ve worked hard, and I love being able to give back.”

Photos: p. 1: © Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Images; p. 3tr: © Bill Olive/Getty Images

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The miners celebrate after being rescued from their frightening ordeal.

Buried AliveIn 2010, a disaster left 33 Chilean men buried alive inside a mine. All 33 men survived.By Siobhán McGowan

First, they felt the vibrations. The sight of milky quartz rocks, falling from above soon followed. Then came the earth-shaking explosion, which flooded the underground caverns with ashen dust. When the gritty clouds parted, the 33 men who had been working in the caverns of a mine in Chile’s Atacama

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Desert realized what happened: A colossal block of rock, 45 stories tall and twice as heavy as the Empire State Building, had splintered off from the mountain above them and came crashing down.

Fortunately, the miners were huddled inside a steel-reinforced safe room called “The Refuge” when the disaster happened—the only reason they survived. How much longer they would remain alive was a question no one wanted to ask. They were sealed inside the room by a 770,000-ton mega-slab of stone. All connections to the outside world had been cut off—along with air ventilation.

Rescue Efforts Begin It was the afternoon of August 5, 2010. As word of the disaster spread, rescue workers, family members, and government officials rushed to the scene. No one above ground knew if any of the men had survived. The old mine had a poor safety record, its shabby infrastructure weakened by decades of blasting and digging. Still the rescue workers remained hopeful and resolved to bring all the men home, even if that meant retrieving their dead bodies. Chilean media put the miners’ chances of survival at less than two percent.

Standing Together Buried under half a mile of rock, the 33 men made a decision. Bossman Luis Urzua symbolically

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removed his white helmet, announcing, “We are all equal now.” For however long their entombment—indeed, their lives—might last, the men would stay united, acting as a team.

The miners organized themselves into shifts. They held daily prayer meetings to cope with their despair. They figured out a fair way to ration their measly food supply. The Refuge contained scarcely enough emergency provisions to last 48 hours, but the men knew they would be trapped much longer. So, in the first days of their saga, each ate a single meal consisting of a spoonful of canned tuna and two cookies. As the days turned into one week, then two, they were left with one cookie per man every three days. A single peach slice was split into 33 slivers. After the few bottles of water in The Refuge were finished, they drank the dirty, oily residual water used to keep the underground machinery cool.

While the miners prayed, played cardboard checkers, squabbled, and slowly starved in the darkness, rescuers grappled with the enormity of their task. To their horror, they realized the massive stone slab was not stable. Experts debated where they could drill without further weakening the mountain and causing a total collapse. They made several false starts. The trapped miners grew frail, their ribs showing through their skin, their minds tortured by the sound of sporadic drilling.

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Finally, on day 17, rescuers succeeded in drilling a narrow shaft all the way down. The miners who could muster enough strength stumbled to the drill bit and drummed on it with their wrenches to signal they were alive. On the surface, a great cheer rose up after engineers withdrew the equipment and discovered a note tied to it that read: “We are well in The Refuge—The 33.”

Signs of Progress Immediately afterward, rescue workers shuttled food, fresh water, a phone, and other supplies down the narrow hole. But the challenge of how to bring the men back to the surface remained. Although the 33 were no longer at risk of starvation, they were still trapped.

Rescue workers resolved to drill a separate escape chute—separate from the smaller supply hole. It needed to be 28 inches in diameter—wide enough to fit the men. Many nations sent help, including the United States, which donated a 26,000-pound drill from a Pennsylvania company. In mid-September, rescuers broke through the rock a second time, also gradually drilling outward to expand the hole. Once large enough, the workers attached a custom-made capsule—dubbed the Fenix—to an industrial crane, and slowly lowered it into the chute.

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Rescued! Florencio Avalos, the first miner to be freed, reached the surface after midnight on October 13, 2010, as millions watched on TV. The rescue efforts continued, and 24 hours later, Luis Urzua, the supervisor, was the last to be lifted from the rocky prison. His first breath of fresh air marked the end of the 69-day nightmare.

Many of the miners suffered for months, even years, from post-traumatic stress, each struggling to come to terms with the terrifying entombment he’d miraculously survived. But the men’s pact held strong. Any proceeds from their incredible tale, they’d agreed, would be shared equally—just as they’d once divvied up that meager wedge of peach. When a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist wrote an account of their story, Deep Down Dark, and it was later turned into a movie, The 33, all the survivors basked in the acclaim and in the pride of knowing that, under the most dire of circumstances, they never abandoned their commitment to each other.

One by one, miners stepped into a capsule, which was then lifted to the surface.

Photos: p. 1: © Alex Ibanez/Government of Chile/Xinhua/Newscom; p. 5tr: © Claudia Vega/EPA/Newscom

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A driverless car takes a passenger for a ride through Palo Alto, California.

Cars of the FutureDiscover what one company is doing to make driverless cars a reality. By Siobhán McGowan

Passing a driver’s test is a rite of passage for most high school students—but is it about to become a relic of the past? It will if some tech giants get their way! A developmental unit at Google is currently working on driverless cars that would chauffeur passengers around, thus making the driver’s license unnecessary.

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“I’ve gone from hoping it will happen to knowing it’s going to happen,” says Chris Urmson, head engineer of Google’s self-driving team. On the side streets of Mountain View, California, the Silicon Valley town where the company is headquartered, bulbous, siren-topped prototypes of such cars are now a common sight.

Technical Challenges Some components of driverless technology, like cruise control and automatic emergency brakes, are already standard features in many contemporary cars. But before cars can be completely automated, the technology has some bugs to work out.

The scenarios driverless cars have the most difficulty with are often the same ones that baffle drivers: negotiating four-way stops, and gauging whether to speed up or slow down when the light turns yellow at a busy intersection. In addition, sensors that supply crucial data to driverless software don’t work well in snow or heavy rain.

Other Challenges Apart from the technical issues, there’s also the challenge of persuading car-loving Americans to hang up their keys and to put their trust in, basically, robots. Affordability is another issue,

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as is liability. If a driverless car gets into an accident, who pays the insurance claim—the passenger or the programmer of the operating system?

The Benefits Still, the benefits of creating a driverless car that works well far outweigh the challenges currently faced by the developers. The largest benefit being safety.

Human error is the cause of more than 90 percent of car accidents: some people doze off, while others get distracted. And in 40 percent of crashes, drivers never even hit the brakes. “Our cars won’t do any of that,” says Ron Medford, Google team’s safety director.

Driverless cars will also help boost productivity. For example, while your car is negotiating rush hour for you, you can work or even catch up on your sleep.

In addition, automated cars will be more cost and environmentally friendly than traditional vehicles. Cars that can shuttle themselves back

Instead of focusing on the road, passengers of driverless cars will be able to read, catch up on work, and even watch television.

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home after dropping you off at your destination will reduce the need for parking garages. And since these cars will run on electricity, they will also eliminate air pollution caused by exhaust fumes spewed out by gasoline-burning vehicles.

Another benefit is that the automated car will be more sensitive to its surroundings than a traditional car—and that means fewer accidents. The car uses a mixture of 3-D laser mapping and GPS to pinpoint where it is and what’s around it at every given second. The sophisticated software identifies pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vehicles in its path by their shapes and movement patterns, even seeing through objects. A driverless car will identify a cat hidden behind a bush before it ever dashes out into the road!

Furthermore, driverless cars will only continue to improve after they hit the road. The details of every logged mile are added to the data history of each vehicle, so any errors or challenges encountered during the drive will be remembered and used to make informed decisions when similar situations are encountered in the future.

That’s promising news for a future when there will be no one behind the steering wheel.

Photos: p. 1: © Winni Wintermeyer/Sipa USA/Newscom; p. 3tr: © Rinspeed, with permission

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Courting JusticeSonia Sotomayor is the nation’s first Hispanic US Supreme Court justice. Learn how she went from the barrio to the bench.By Jennifer Marino Walters

When Sonia Sotomayor was a kid, she loved to read Nancy Drew books. The girl-detective series inspired the young Sonia to dream of becoming a detective or a lawyer when she grew up—at the time, she had no idea just how far she would go

When Sonia Sotomayor was appointed to the US Supreme Court in 2009, she became the first Hispanic person and third woman to hold the position.

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in achieving that dream. Not only did she go on to become a top New York City lawyer, in 2009, Sotomayor became a justice of the nation’s highest court—the United States Supreme Court. She was the first Hispanic person to receive such an honor.

The Highest Court in the NationBecoming a Supreme Court justice is no easy task. The court has only nine justices, whose job it is to decide whether local, state, and federal laws are in agreement with the US Constitution. An opportunity to become a Justice only presents itself when a current member of the court steps down.

When this happens, the president of the United States is responsible for nominating a candidate for the job. The US Senate must then approve or reject the president’s choice.

President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor in May 2009—and on August 6, the Senate approved her nomination by a vote of 68 to 31. She replaced Justice David Souter, who retired.

Sotomayor became the third woman in US history to become a Supreme Court justice. Sandra Day O’Connor, who served from 1981 to 2006, was the first. The second, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has been a Supreme Court justice since 1993. Elena

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Sonia, shown here with younger brother, Juan, grew up in the Bronx, a borough of New York City.

Kagan, the fourth woman to receive that honor, was named to the Supreme Court in 2010.

Rising to the TopSotomayor’s achievement is even more remarkable when considering her humble beginnings and the challenges she had to overcome.

Sonia was born in New York City on June 25, 1954, to Puerto Rican parents. When she was just eight years old, Sonia was diagnosed with diabetes—a disease that affects how the body uses sugars, which are the body’s main source of fuel.

Paying for medical bills, along with food and shelter, was challenging. Her father earned low wages as a factory worker, while her mother worked as a nurse at a local clinic. When Sonia was nine years old, her father passed away. As a result, her mother had to work six days a week to provide for Sonia and her brother.

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During this challenging time, Sonia’s mother insisted that her children focus their attention on school; she expected Sonia and her brother to study hard and get good grades.

Sonia did just that. She graduated first in her class at both her elementary and high schools. Her good grades earned her a scholarship to Princeton University, in New Jersey, from which she graduated near the top of her class. She then went to Yale Law School in Connecticut.

After getting her law degree, Sotomayor worked as a lawyer and a lower-court judge before being named to the Supreme Court.

Inspiring OthersSotomayor and her historic rise to the Supreme Court has inspired many kids and adults across the United States. High school student Jheosafaf Ortega lives in the same Bronx neighborhood where Sotomayor grew up. She and her family watched proudly as Sotomayor answered questions from US senators during her nomination hearings. “If Judge Sotomayor can grow up here . . . and make it all the way to the Supreme Court, then I can do anything,” Jheosafaf said.

Photos: p. 1: Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States; p. 3br: The White House

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Across the country, many students have lobbied for free college tuition.

Degrees for Free?To boost enrollment of low-income students and build a better qualified workforce, some lawmakers support tuition-free college.By Siobhán McGowan

Should college be tuition-free? President Barack Obama put forth the idea in his 2015 State of the Union address. During the address, he proposed that the federal government pay 75 percent of the cost of a two-year community college, and that the

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states cover the rest. The controversial suggestion, projected to cost taxpayers $60 billion over the next decade, had zero chance of being passed by Congress because of its hefty price tag.

But is the idea far-fetched? According to the Georgetown University Center on Education, 60 percent of all jobs in the United States will soon require a college education. The percentage seems even more staggering when you consider that only 40 percent of all working-age adults currently hold a college degree. So, if American businesses are demanding a college education from its employees, should the American government be responsible for at least part of the costs?

Those in Favor Many academics and policymakers say yes—that providing tuition for at least a two-year community college would be a smart investment in America’s workforce—and in the country’s future. Similar to the way some businesses train entry-level employees with a long-term plan of turning them into company executives one day, America would be financing the education of its students to ensure its future standing as a world power and to drive its prosperity.

Free tuition would also help students who are enrolled in college to complete their education—

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a huge issue for students who struggle financially. Even though Pell Grants currently cover most community college tuition, many low-income students still have to hold down jobs in order to pay for housing, transportation, food, and books. According to professor Laura Perner of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, “working a higher number of hours, especially when the employment is off campus, reduces the likelihood of completing a degree.” If tuition were paid for, then the grant money would be freed up for the other expenses, permitting students to work fewer hours and focus more on their studies.

So, where would the money to make college tuition free come from? Proponents state that it’s already there. Through its many student aid initiatives, the US government spends enough money (about $77 billion, according to the New America Foundation) to pay the tuition bill of every student at every public college in the country.

Many college graduates are saddled with debt from their tuition costs.

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Those Opposed Opponents of the proposal don’t really disagree with the idea of free tuition. Rather, they want to place much tighter restrictions on who can receive it. They argue that tuition breaks should be provided for the neediest students only.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 40 percent of all US students enroll in community colleges. If these colleges become free regardless of students’ income, many wealthier, middle class students may choose to enroll for two years, and then transfer to a four-year college simply to avoid paying the full cost of their education. This may crowd out those students who are financially challenged.

The type of classes provided by community colleges is also an issue. Critics point out that many community colleges fail to offer enough courses that are practical in the real world. It’s one of the main reasons, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, that only one out of every five full-time students completes his or her two-year degree within three years of starting school.

Before qualifying for federal support, opponents stress, the colleges should have to tailor their curriculum to real-world needs, trim any frivolous

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“boutique” course offerings (for example, basket weaving), reduce dropout rates, and establish internship programs with local businesses. In a way, by educating students for specific careers, the community colleges would serve a similar function as vocational schools.

Well, both advocates and opponents of the free-tuition proposal certainly make compelling arguments. What do you think about the issue?

Photos: p. 1: © Michael Nagle/The New York Times/Redux; p. 3tr: © Daryl Cagle for MSNBC.com/Political Cartoons

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A former child soldier dismantles land mines he planted more than 30 years ago. By Siobhán McGowan

A man named Eoun Yeak scans the land before him. He is in Cambodia, a country in Southeast Asia, where up to 6 million land mines have been planted—many of them by his own hands. But now, Yeak is determined to find and deactivate every land mine to ensure the safety of his people.

Digging Up the Past

This former child soldier has cleared more than 50,000 land mines in Cambodia. Some of these deactivated land mines are shown here.

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Violence Erupts Around the time Yeak was born, a radical group called the Khmer Rouge rose to power and ultimately ruled Cambodia from 1975–1979. The group was determined to create a society where all people were forced to work on government-run farms. Anyone opposed to this society was tortured and executed. The punishment was also extended to people who “looked” like they might be in opposition—this included journalists, lawyers, professors, and students, as well as religious groups such as Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians.

To do their bidding, the Khmer Rouge often recruited child soldiers, who were taken from families that had been executed. The children were armed with weapons and forced to carry out acts of violence. One of those children was Eoun Yeak.

Yeak’s family was killed when he was a toddler. He spent the next few years in an orphanage. When he was about 10 years old, Khmer Rouge militants ordered him to plant land mines. The explosives were positioned Cambodia is a small country

located in Southeast Asia.

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to defend military locations, block strategic roadways, and blow up opponents.

“I maybe planted 4,000 to 5,000 a month,” he says. “We planted them all over the place.”

End to Violence In 1979, Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia’s capitol city, Phnom Penh, and drove out the Khmer Rouge. Years of unrest followed, and in the early 1990s, the United Nations moved in to restore peace.

Today, Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy with a prime minister and a parliament. The horrors of the Khmer Rouge are in the past. But millions of mines remain in place, peppered across the landscape, covered by only a couple of inches of dirt, and primed to detonate into sprays of deadly shrapnel the instant someone steps on them. They’ve killed thousands of civilians and maimed thousands more. For every 290 people in Cambodia there is one amputee, which is among the highest such ratios in the world.

Man on a Mission Maybe one man can’t single-handedly dismantle every mine he ever planted, but that boy soldier once known as Eoun Yeak is trying. He’s worked so diligently that people have compared him to a heavy-duty appliance company in Japan called AKIRA. That’s the name he goes by today.

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“Aki Ra,” now in his forties, is leader of the Cambodian Self Help Demining squad. When the United Nations came to Cambodia in the early 1990s to help restore peace, he realized he had an opportunity to undo the damage he’d had no choice but to cause. In partnership with the organization, he began dismantling the planted explosives. His initial technique was simple—shockingly so.

“I poke my stick in the ground till I find a mine,” he described the method he employed for the next 15 years. “Next, I dig around it, to make sure that it is not booby trapped. Then I unscrew the detonator. And the mine is safe.” Between 1992 and 2007, armed with nothing but a pocketknife, pliers, the aforementioned stick, and his bare hands, he successfully liberated his homeland of an astonishing 50,000 mines.

Today, Aki Ra uses more sophisticated equipment for the job—he wears a blast-proof visor, flak jacket, and other protective gear. He also scans for mines with a metal detector. When the device makes a sound, he delicately prods the dirt to uncover a

Signs are placed in some areas of Cambodia to warn people of potential minefields.

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hockey puck-sized mine. Rather than dismantling it like he used to, he now—in accordance with international demining guidelines—destroys it in place with a controlled explosion.

“One less land mine, one less child without a leg,” he equates.

Raising Money—and Awareness Over the years, many tourists who have heard about Aki Ra’s efforts began flocking to Cambodia to see the mines he has cleared firsthand. In 1999, he began charging visitors a dollar to see the collection, thus creating a museum. The small admission fee helps finance the Cambodia Landmine Relief Fund—and also the orphanage Aki Ra founded. Over the years, it has provided food, shelter, and access to school to about 100 children who would otherwise be homeless. The very first child he brought to the orphanage had lost a leg to a land mine that had also killed his mother and father. Aki Ra met the boy, begging on the streets, while he was demining the boy’s province.

“If I didn’t help them, they would have a very difficult life,” Aki Ra says of the orphans. For someone who has had such a difficult life himself, it’s a powerfully humble statement. With steadfast, straightforward heroism, Aki Ra is reclaiming his country, one square foot at a time.

Photos: p. 1: © Lynn Johnson/National Geographic Creative; p. 2br: © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; p. 4tr: © David Longstreath/AP Images

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An American soldier in Vietnam is shown with a military dog.

Dogs of War A national monument honors wartime’s four-legged heroes.By Angelo Bucci

In 1964, the United States entered a war in Vietnam—a country in Southeast Asia. US troops were sent there to stop a military group called the Viet Cong from spreading Communism. This is a

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political system that prohibits people from owning their own land, machinery, and factories.

The Viet Cong were a tough enemy because they were familiar and comfortable with the geography of the battlefield, whereas US troops were not. And while the US Army had lots of high-tech equipment, it was almost useless against the Viet Cong’s guerrilla warfare. In this type of fighting, small groups of fighters ambush, raid, and set traps for the enemy, and then flee quickly.

As the war waged on, the US troops felt helpless. They needed to try something different, so they turned to a secret weapon that had worked very well in previous wars—dogs! Dogs could not only sniff out an enemy 1,000 yards away, they could hear wind blowing across a trip wire attached to a hidden bomb. The dogs could also find land mines that threatened the lives of many soldiers.

To find dogs suited for the battlefield, the US Army sought help from the American public. They asked families to donate German shepherds, Labrador retrievers, and other strong canines that could handle wartime situations. American families responded to the call and donated 4,000 dogs, which were trained by soldiers called handlers.

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A Soldier’s Best FriendThe dogs did a great job sniffing out the enemy, but they also became known for their loyalty. Sergeant John Flannelly is one of many US soldiers who owes his life to a dog. One day in 1969, the enemy attacked Flannelly, his dog Bruiser, and some other soldiers. Flannelly was hurt badly in the battle.

Flannelly told Bruiser to run, but the dog refused to listen. “He wouldn’t leave. I grabbed onto his body harness and he dragged me.” Bruiser didn’t stop pulling until Flannelly was in a safe place.

Bruiser later visited Flannelly in the hospital. “He got up, put his head on my shoulder, started licking my face. I just hugged him and cried,” says Flannelly.

Flannelly wasn’t the only soldier rescued. According to various reports, war dogs saved about 10,000 American lives in Vietnam. Unfortunately, many of these canines were left behind in Vietnam after the war.

Gone but Not ForgottenSince then, many war-dog handlers and former soldiers have petitioned to have these four-legged heroes honored in a special way. US Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush both supported the cause.

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Finally, in 2013, the US Working Dog Teams National Monument was unveiled at the annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. It was the first ever national monument dedicated to military canines. The monument, a nine-foot-tall bronze sculpture, depicts a dog handler surrounded by four different dog breeds trained to serve in the US military.

The event was a memorable one for all those involved, particularly John C. Burnham—a former military dog handler who came up with the idea for the monument. “The monument was inspired by Clipper,” said Burnham, referring to a German shepherd who served beside him during the Vietnam War. “He saved my life and the lives of others. I just wanted to give something back to him, and to other animals who have done so much and asked for so little.”

Photos: p. 1: © AP Images; p. 4r: Airman 1st Class Krystal M. Jeffers/U.S. Air Force

The US Working Dog Teams National Monument features four dog breeds commonly used by the US Army: German shepherd, Belgian Malinois, Labrador retriever, and Doberman pinscher.

[ART Spec: Photo of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Please use the photo in the existing NG eRead.]

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More than 1 million animals have been killed by plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean.

Floating JunkyardTons of deadly plastic junk is swirling around in the Pacific Ocean.By Britt Norlander

The biggest junkyard on Earth isn’t on land, rather, it’s far out in the ocean, off the coast of California. The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is an enormous pile of trash that contains more than 3 million tons of waste and takes up an area of the ocean that’s almost twice the size of Texas!

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Carried Out to SeaWhere exactly does the floating trash come from? According to environmental experts, most of it originates on land. Litter that’s been thrown on beaches is carried into the ocean by wind and waves. Meanwhile, litter on the street can end up in the garbage patch, too. Rainstorms wash the street litter into nearby rivers, which then carry it into the ocean.

Soon, the drifting trash gets caught in a set of swirling water currents, which spin the trash and push piles of it together. Over time, more trash gets caught in the currents—and eventually, an enormous junkyard is formed!

Danger in the WaterThe garbage patch is not only ugly—it’s extremely dangerous. Many animals get tangled in the junk and are unable to free themselves to find food. As a result, they starve to death. Other animals attempt to eat the trash, but when they try to swallow large pieces of plastic, they choke. The garbage kills about 1 million birds each year, as well as 100,000 ocean animals, including dolphins, sea lions, and turtles.

Scientists say the trash may be harmful in other ways. Most of the plastic in the trash—including bottle caps, toothbrushes, and fast-food forks—

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contains chemicals that can be toxic to creatures that eat it. Scientists are currently studying fish that have consumed the plastic to learn how exactly the chemicals affect them.

Big Clean-UpScientists are also looking for ways to clean up the garbage patch—but that won’t be easy. Many of the plastic pieces are so tiny that it is difficult to remove them from the water.

According to ecologist Chris Wilcox, the best solution to the problem is prevention. Wilcox encourages people to clean up beaches, or to reduce and recycle the plastic they use; this would help prevent garbage from washing up into the ocean in the first place.

“All of that trash was in a human’s hand at one point or another,” says Wilcox. “The essence of the solution is to provide incentives for people not to throw this stuff away. It is the cheapest, simplest, and far most efficient solution to the problem.”

Photos: p. 1: © Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images, p. 3tr: © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The Great Pacific Garbage patch stretches across the Pacific Ocean, with one area of concentration located off the coast of California, and the other near Japan.

Japan

US

Pacific Ocean

WESTPACIFICGYRE

EASTPACIFICGYRE

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Caption TK

A scientist tests a drone that may one day be used to plant seeds.

Green MachinesA group of engineers plans to use mini flying machines to plant forests. By Siobhán McGowan

Unmanned aerial vehicles—known as drones—have been around since the early 1970s. These remote controlled flyers were originally used by the military during combat missions, but since then, they have been adapted for other uses. For example, major companies have considered using drones to deliver packages to people who live in areas that are hard to

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access with land vehicles, while hobbyists young and old view them as cool tech toys.

Recently, one engineering firm has discovered an important environmental use for these machines—as seed dispersers in areas where forests have been cleared. The engineers are confident that drones can be the robotic, twenty-first-century version of Johnny Appleseed, the American pioneer who became famous in the 1800s for planting apple orchards by hand.

The Problem Lumber, mining, farming, wildfires, urban sprawl—combined, these elements destroy 26 billion trees each year. The implications of this are enormously bad for Earth. Trees provide the oxygen we need to breathe and absorb much of the harmful carbon dioxide we produce. They’re also home to millions upon millions of animal and plant species. For these reasons and more, environmental experts argue that it is essential we replant forests that have been decimated.

Over the years, traditional replanting techniques have fallen far short of this need. One method, manual planting, is costly, time-consuming, and labor intensive—because, as its name suggests, it requires hiring lots of skilled hands to do the job. Dispersing dry seeds by air hasn’t worked either.

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Instead of taking root, the seeds are just scattered by the wind.

BioCarbon Engineering, a UK-based engineering firm that has spent years studying these issues, recently came up with a low-cost and efficient solution to these problems—and it involves using drones for the job.

How It Works For the process to work, drones would first fly over potential planting zones, snapping photos and creating 3-D maps of the area. Based on the data collected, the drones would then create the best possible pattern for which to disperse the seeds. Next, pods containing seedlings immersed in nutrient-rich gel would be loaded into the drones. The drones would then take off, following the pattern they created. While flying up to 6.5 feet above the ground, they would shoot the seedling-bearing pods deep into the soil. The pods would break open, allowing the seedlings to take root.

According to officials at BioCarbon Engineering, a team of drones could plant approximately “36,000 trees each day.” And in the

Over the years, many forests have been destroyed by loggers.

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next 5–7 years, “1 billion trees could be planted over 1,200 acres annually.”

Next Steps According to the BioCarbon Engineering team, more testing needs to be done before the drones can begin their reforestation mission. For example, the drones need to be tested in different environments to ensure that they can function properly. Still, the team is determined they will succeed.

“I know we’ll get there,” says the company’s CEO, Susan Fletcher. “These drones are going to do a lot of good in the world.”

Photos: p. 1: © Radim Beznoska/Superstock; p. 3tr: © Mattias Klum/National Geographic Creative

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Hearts on Fire: Inspiring ChangeA movement called Hearts on Fire promotes people who are making a difference, and inspires others to do the same. By Siobhán McGowan

What inspires someone to take a stand? How are heroes made? A movement called Hearts on Fire hopes to answer that question by showcasing amazing people who are dedicated to helping others

Teens take part in a bike trek organized by Hearts on Fire activist, Ana Reyes.

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and improving our world. The goal is to inspire everyone to make a difference.

Meet three young leaders who are part of the Hearts on Fire movement below. Maybe their inspirational stories can inspire your own.

Ana Reyes: I Challenge Myself One day, Ana Reyes saw a newspaper ad for a charity bike ride that spanned 286 miles, from Boston to New York. The idea of biking such a vast distance seemed “impossible” to Reyes, but she was up for the challenge. After weeks of training—and one bad spill—Reyes completed the long-distance ride without a glitch. The experience left her transformed.

“It was such an empowering experience, to go from [thinking] ‘I can’t do this,’ to actually completing it,” she says. “I thought someone needs to [create] a similar experience for students.”

The particular students that Reyes had in mind were those from impoverished backgrounds, much like herself. Reyes had grown up in a tough area of New York City called the South Bronx, where poor socioeconomic conditions sometimes kept teens from aspiring to do great things.

Ana Reyes (center) helps teens gain confidence by encouraging them to partake in challenging bike treks.

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“I wanted them to realize that they are capable of accomplishing so much, and that many times the biggest obstacle standing in the way is their own fear and limited perception,” said Reyes.

So, in 2005, Reyes started I Challenge Myself, a nonprofit organization that coaches New York City public high school students for fitness challenges. Students learn about body-fueling foods, as well as strength-training exercises to build endurance. The training culminates at the end of the semester, when students take part in a 100-mile bike trek. Students can also participate in a 400-mile summer college bike tour during which riders cycle to different campuses all across the state.

“Training for and riding that 100-mile ride is a symbol for life,” says Ana. “The possibilities are limitless, but we need to have goals and a plan, work hard, persevere in the face of challenges, and be a team player.”

Today, the program serves 200 students and continues to expand. Ride on, Ana!

Reshma Saujani: Girls Who Code Reshma Saujani has degrees from top colleges, Harvard and Yale. She worked as an attorney and a political fundraiser. She served as New York City’s

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Deputy Public Advocate—a job that’s second in line to the mayor. She was also the first Indian American woman to run for Congress. Reshma’s résumé is clearly impressive, and yet, she has some insecurities.

“I was that girl who was terrified of math and science growing up,” she says. “It made me feel inadequate in every single job.”

Her fear, in addition to the bullying she faced as an Indian American raised in white suburban Illinois, ultimately awakened her fighting spirit. In 2012, Reshma founded Girls Who Code with the goal of closing the gender gap in technology.

“[There’s an] incredibly pervasive, totally false cultural idea that computer science is somehow a boy thing, and that girls aren’t good at it.” she says. “I see young women who have this myth ingrained in them, and that’s what Girls Who Code is working to fix.”

Through a summer immersion program and coding clubs in cities across the United States,

Reshma Saujani (right) prepares girls for careers in science and technology by teaching them how to code.

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the nonprofit introduces female high school sophomores and juniors to coding, website and app development, and robotics—all skills the girls will need to compete for tech jobs after college. The organization also provides opportunities to meet industry leaders. The experience has had a tremendous effect on its participants.

“Ninety-five percent of the Girls Who Code participants plan to major or minor in computer science,” Reshma states confidently. “We’re actually moving the numbers really quickly.” It looks like Reshma has cracked the code to success!

Ben Rattray: Change.org Ben Rattray had already mapped out his life plan. He was going to become an investment banker and make lots of money. But he changed course when his younger brother came out to him, and the rest of their family and friends, as gay.

“The pain he experienced wasn’t really caused by people who were explicitly anti-gay,” Rattray explains, “rather, it was the people that stood by him and did nothing [when he was being taunted]. Personally, I had been one of those people.” Ashamed by his lack of support, Rattray thought about what he could have done differently—and what he could do going forward. He vowed never to stay silent again and to empower others with a

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platform where their voices could be heard too.

In 2007, Rattray launched Change.org, an online community where social media and social activism meet. With a simple tap of an app on their cell phone, anybody can start a campaign and rally a virtual army behind their chosen cause. Every day, people everywhere use the site to effect change in their communities, in their country, and around the globe. Some actions target corrupt governments, others confront greedy corporations. One of most successful petitions so far was organized by a British man who was determined to have his sister released from an Iranian prison. More than 750,000 strangers signed a petition demanding her freedom—prompting government officials to take notice and successfully negotiate her release.

The impact of petitions, Rattray believes, is just the beginning. He’s confident that once users of Change.org experience the success of their “clicktivism,” they’ll be encouraged to mobilize not just online but in person.

More than 10,000 petitions are created each month on Change.org, a site founded by Ben Rattray (shown here).

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“We’re working for a world where no one is powerless, and where creating change is a part of everyday life,” Rattray says. “We’re just getting started, and we hope you’ll join us.”

Want more stories of ordinary heroes and their incredible achievements? Want to find an outlet to channel your own passion for good? Visit Hearts on Fire at www.heartsonfire.org, where the mission is: “Inspiring People From All Walks of Life to Join the Social Change Movement.”

Photos: pp. 1, 2, 4, 6: Courtesy Sara Arlotti/IF Hummingbird Foundation

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Lin-Manuel Miranda (center) leads a multicultural cast in Hamilton, a musical about one of America’s Founding Fathers.

Hip-Hop HamiltonLin-Manuel Miranda took an 800-page tale about Alexander Hamilton and turned it into an award-winning, hip-hop musical. By Siobhán McGowan

Why can’t history class be this fun?! That’s what almost everyone who sees the smash Broadway musical Hamilton bemoans after the show. The president of the United States shared the sentiment and even called the musical “phenomenal.”

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So what’s all the hype about? The musical tells the story of Alexander Hamilton’s meteoric rise from an orphanage in the British West Indies to a position as one of our nation’s Founding Fathers. Hamilton served as an aide to George Washington during the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), and he coauthored the Federalist Papers—a series of articles and essays that were instrumental in getting the US Constitution ratified, or approved. He also created and put into operation the banking system as the first ever US Secretary of the Treasury. The list of accomplishments goes on until—spoiler alert—Vice President Aaron Burr challenged him to a duel for slandering his name, and shot him dead on the banks of New Jersey in July 1804.

If this scandalous history lesson still isn’t enough to get you excited, the Broadway production will change your mind: that’s because the entire musical is performed hip-hop style! That’s right—hip-hop. The show’s multicultural cast delivers the story with rapid-fire rhymes that are peppered with urban slang and a lot of attitude.

History’s Natural MC While the idea of putting a hip-hop spin on Alexander Hamilton’s life might seem strange to some people, it’s perfectly natural to Lin-Manuel Miranda. He’s the show’s writer, composer, and lead

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actor. “I thought this was uniquely suited for hip-hop because it’s a story of rebellion and revolution,” says Miranda. “It’s just an improbable and amazing story. This is a kid who grew up with nothing in the West Indies and got a scholarship for his poetry. His ambition helped form this country.”

Making a Musical So how exactly did Miranda develop the musical? “For Hamilton, what I’d do is write at the piano until I had something I liked,” Miranda recalls. “Then I’d make a loop of it and put it in my headphones and then walk around until I had the lyrics.”

For the next six years, Miranda crisscrossed New York’s Central Park, listening to the tunes while writing—and rewriting—his rhymes until they were polished. All the walking and rough drafts paid off. In 2015, the musical debuted at the Public Theater in New York before moving to Broadway, where the city’s most successful musicals are performed.

The show immediately sold out for months in advance, and went on to win numerous awards.

Miranda and the show’s music director, Alex Lacamoire, were thrilled to receive a Grammy award for their work.

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In 2016, Hamilton won a Grammy award for best cast recording. Keeping in character, Manuel rapped an acceptance speech that included a shout-out to his young son: “The cast, unstoppable, band is unbeatable, inimitable . . . always inspiring me to pull through. . . . Sebastian, Daddy’s bringing home a Grammy for you.”

Coming Soon . . . to a School Near You? So, what’s next for Miranda and the show? While some Broadway greats aspire to have their shows adapted by movie or television companies, Miranda’s dream is a little different. As a former high school English teacher, he considers his show an educational experience that students and teachers could benefit from. So nothing would make Miranda happier than to see his Hamilton performed by school drama clubs, in the same company as West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof.

“I want to be in that club,” Miranda declares. “I want to be in the club that writes the musical that every high school does.” Hamilton performed in your school auditorium? It may not replace fourth-period American history class or a final exam, but still, it could be the start of a revolution.

Photos: p. 1: © Sara Krulwich/The New York Times/Redux; p. 3tr: © Theo Wargo/Getty Images

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Humans of New YorkPhotographer Brandon Stanton devotes his life to telling the stories of New Yorkers.By Leilani Kahale

The year was 2008. Brandon Stanton had just lost his job as a bond trader for a financial company in Chicago. The experience left him frustrated and disheartened about the career path he had chosen. He resolved not to return to the financial industry, and instead, decided to focus on something he felt passionate about—photographing people.

Brandon Stanton’s blog—Humans of New York—showcases the city’s diverse population.

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“I loved taking photographs, so I struck up this kind of crazy idea that I was going to go to New York and stop 10,000 people on the street, take their portrait, and create a photographic census of the city,” says Stanton.

Why New York? For Stanton, the city’s diverse population was sure to make for some interesting photos—more than 37 percent of New York’s inhabitants are immigrants, and over 180 languages are spoken.

“If you’re going to exhibit the diversity of the lives and stories on planet Earth, I don’t think there’s any single location that would be easier to do that than New York,” he adds.

By 2010, Stanton had saved enough money to make the move and was finally ready to turn his dream into a reality. With a camera in hand, he headed east.

Welcome to New York When Stanton arrived in New York, he immediately got to work on the project, stopping passersby and asking to take their photos. He found that approaching random strangers was very intimidating at first.

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Brandon Stanton has been documenting the lives of New Yorkers for more than six years.

“I was terrified,” recalls Stanton, “but over time I realized it’s not about what you say when you approach a stranger, it’s about the energy that you give off. And the key is to be comfortable with the fact that some people are going to turn you down no matter what.”

In spite of his initial fears, Stanton prevailed. He photographed families celebrating the birth of a baby, a young wheelchair-bound woman who had just received an acceptance letter to the London School of Economics, and various children at play. Stanton would then select a photo from each series and post it to a blog he called Humans of New York.

Story Time The experience was a fulfilling one for Stanton, but over time, he realized that his photographs could be even more powerful if he shared his subjects’ stories. So, he started to interview the people he photographed.

He wrote about an Egyptian man who had climbed the tallest mountain on every continent and had recently lost his wife. He shared a story

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about a young boy who grew up in a tough neighborhood but was inspired by his school principal to achieve great things. He shared insights about the homeless, refugees, people seeking lost loves, and so much more.

It wasn’t long before Brandon’s blog began to attract attention. By 2012, just two years after Humans of New York was launched, the site had amassed more than 64,000 likes on social media. Book deals soon followed, as did invitations to appear on television and radio show interviews. By 2016, nearly 17 million people had visited Stanton’s site.

So, what is the secret to the site’s popularity? According to Brandon, it’s his ability to bring out his subjects’ individuality. “I’m never trying to show what’s the same in everybody,” he explains. “I’m looking for what’s unique about that person. My goal is to tell each person’s story as best I can, not in relation to all the other stories I’m telling—just his or her story.”

Photos: p. 1 (all): © Brandon Stanton; p. 3tr: © Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

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Handball, shown here, is a popular sport in many countries, including Iraq. Unfortunately, in some parts of Iraq, women are prohibited from playing handball.

Iraq’s Unlikely AthletesWomen are not allowed to play sports in Iraq’s Anbar Province, but some women are secretly breaking the rules.By Heather Moore

In 2009, a group of women in Ramadi, Iraq, formed a handball team. The game is fast paced and exciting—and for these women, it is also dangerous.

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That’s because women in Ramadi are not allowed to play sports—being caught playing handball would result in punishment or possibly death.

A Violent HistoryRamadi is located in Anbar Province, an area in western Iraq that is controlled by violent political rebels who impose strict, oppressive laws on women. Here, women must wear veils whenever they leave their homes, while girls and women are forbidden from going to school and playing sports.

People in Ramadi did not always follow such strict rules. In the 1980s, many girls and women went to school and participated in sports. In fact, people all over Iraq loved to play sports; the country was even considered an athletic powerhouse in the Middle East.

However, the situation changed in the 1990s, when Iraq became embroiled in wars that lasted for years. Many sports programs had to shut down because the violence made it dangerous for people to leave their homes.

Then, in the mid 2000s, political rebels who were opposed to the country’s government took control of Ramadi and many other parts of Anbar Province. During this time, the situation for women

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worsened—the rebels enforced oppressive rules that kept them from getting an education and from playing sports.

Daring to CompeteAthletic coach Mustafa Najim Abdullah was angered by the political situation and the effect it was having on the country’s sports. He was determined to do something about it—even if it meant risking his life. So, in 2006, he decided to form a handball team with a very unlikely group of athletes—women.

Finding players was difficult because many women were afraid of being harmed or killed. So, Abdullah had to work hard to convince them to join his team. He told them, “Women have rights—and they should not be kept useless.”

Abdullah’s words struck a nerve with some young women. They begged their parents to let them join the team. After some trepidation, they agreed, and soon, Abdullah was coaching a group of 15 women.

Anbar Province, located in western Iraq, is the country’s largest province.

IRAQ

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“We decided to start . . . quietly, as a secret thing,” he said. The handball team played in abandoned schools. It wasn’t easy because sometimes fighting between the rebels and American forces made the city so dangerous that the team could not meet. Bombings often took place. Once, the women had to stop practicing for two months because of all the violence. But they were determined to keep playing, and they went back to practicing as soon as they could.

Abdullah’s team eventually went on to play in a nationwide handball tournament that attracted other women’s teams. Just being there was a victory in itself—and something that Abdullah hopes will lead to more opportunities for his athletes. “Women have rights. They should be able to see the world!”

Photos: p. 1: © Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images; p. 3tr: © Tupungato/Fotolia

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Mapping Navajo NationMany Navajo Indians do not have street addresses—but that’s about to change.By Siobhán McGowan

If you’re ever lost, the global positioning system—GPS—can be very convenient: just key in an address and, through the wonders of satellite navigation, let your device guide you to

Many emergency and postal workers have struggled to find specific locations in Navajo Nation because there are no street addresses.

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your destination. But what if you don’t have any street numbers to enter—and the only landmarks for miles around are sandstone buttes and desert scrub? GPS can’t exactly tell you to take a left at the next cactus!

That’s been the problem for the nearly 200,000 residents of the Navajo Nation, a Native American territory that spans 27,425 square miles across northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. Because physical street addresses are rare within the reservation, finding a particular location can be close to impossible. When you’re waiting for the Post Office to deliver your mail, it’s an inconvenience. But when there’s a medical emergency and you’re waiting for an ambulance that’s lost in the desert, it can be a matter of life and death. To fix the problem, various Navajo authorities are merging resources to make residences easier to find.

Addressing the Issue Issuing addresses involves more than just slapping some numbers on the door. To start with, officials from the Navajo Nation Rural Addressing Authority have to search the tribal roads for houses. Then, to determine which houses are eligible, they have to confirm that people actually inhabit them and they’re not just abandoned shacks.

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Address markers, like the one shown here, are currently being installed on streets and in front of homes.

“That’s one of the biggest challenges—trying to find some of these homes located way out in the country,” says Jesse Delmar, the tribe’s public safety director. Considering that the reservation is equivalent in size to the entire state of West Virginia, the task is even greater than it sounds.

Connecting Groups After physical addresses have been issued, officials will immediately upload the information to computer systems that store geographic data. Emergency dispatchers, utility companies, and other groups will then be able to tap into these systems and access that data.

“Our plan is to bridge the communication barriers between all divisions,” states Jonathan Nez, Navajo Nation vice president. “I’m not just referring to public safety, but the tribal utility authority and our health representatives.”

A Welcome Plan While the process may be a long one—and likely require the cooperation of most Navajo Nation inhabitants—it will be worth it.

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Tso, a longtime resident, is particularly thrilled about the benefits, big and small, that a mappable street address will bring. She lives at the end of a dirt driveway in a pale blue house located in the windswept openness of the northernmost corner of New Mexico. “My nephew frequently orders things on the Internet,” she explains. “So it’ll be easier for delivery people to locate us—this will be a big help.”

Photos: p. 1: © Alison Wright/Getty Images; p. 3br: © Aysa Landry and Indian Country Today Media Network

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No Tips, Please!Faced with increases to the minimum wage, some restaurants are getting rid of tips—and that might not be such a bad thing. By Siobhán McGowan

In the United States, everyone from taxi drivers to hairstylists to, of course, waiters, depends on tips to boost their wages. If you’ve got a summer job at your neighborhood coffee shop, maybe that means a few more dollars in your pocket at the end of your shift. But

Many food service workers cannot afford to support themselves—and their families—on the tips they earn.

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for other workers who need to support themselves and their families, tips are no mere bonus—they’re a necessity. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute reports that 4.3 million Americans rely on the generosity of tippers to help make ends meet.

Unfortunately, the tips these workers are earning just aren’t enough. Nationwide, tipped workers use food stamps at twice the rate of the rest of the workforce and are three times more likely to live in poverty, according to Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United). In addition, the tips that are distributed among employees aren’t always equal. Because of various tax and labor laws, “back-of-house” kitchen workers are not allowed to share in the tips that “front-of-house” servers earn, even though it’s the back-of-house staff who prep and cook the meals.

The issue has raised an important question: Would it be fairer to eliminate tips and find another way to pay all restaurant employees—from dishwashers to chefs—a higher wage?

Money Matters Some well-known restaurateurs believe so. They are now putting a “service included” policy into effect, instead of raising menu prices, as a way to manage costs.

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Renowned New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer recently announced the elimination of tipping at all of his 13 restaurants over the course of 2016. Checks no longer include a line to write in a tip to be charged to a credit card, nor is cash expected at the coat check or the bathroom. Because of higher prices, customers, Meyer calculates, will still end up paying more or less the same total amount as before for a meal, but he will be better able to distribute earnings to the entire staff.

Meyer is not the only restaurateur who is getting rid of the tipping policy and replacing it with higher menu prices or an obligatory service charge. He’s joined by eateries in Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago, for example. Tom Colicchio, famous for his role as head judge on a cooking competition show, has eliminated tipping from some shifts at one of his restaurants. “I suspect that 10 years from now, no one will know what a tip is,” Colicchio stated.

Will It Work? Saru Jayaraman, codirector of ROC United and director of the Food Labor Research Center at

Since back-of-house workers rarely receive tips, they will benefit from the new policy.

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University of California, Berkeley, is optimistic about the policy these restaurant owners are adopting. According to Jayaraman, even if the policies don’t work perfectly—at least it’s a start. “This is initiating a conversation about eliminating an old-fashioned system,” she said. “It’s about ensuring that servers are paid a living wage by their employer, not the customer.”

But what do the tip earners think? Chelsea Krumpler, a waitress at a no-tip, higher-salary restaurant in San Francisco, welcomes the change. ‘“I now earn $25 per hour, which is the equivalent of what I earned during a busy night with tips,” she says. Some of her fellow servers expressed doubts about the change, but Krumpler is adamant that it’s for the best. “I don’t have to worry about a slow night,” she says. “I feel more secure.”

Photos: p. 1: © Steve Debenport/Getty Images; p. 3tr: © Juan Monino/Getty Images

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Out of This World!A vacation in space may seem like science fiction—but it’s almost a reality. By Donny Injara

Are you tired of visiting the same vacation spots? Do you crave more thrills than a typical amusement park has to offer? If so, you might be interested in a vacation that’s literally out of this world. Thanks to public interest and advances in technology, space tourism has quickly grown into a huge business. Worldwide, dozens of companies are developing

Highly specialized rocket planes will soon be able to take tourists on the adventure of a lifetime.

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space travel adventures that will soon be available to private citizens, so if you’ve ever dreamed of being an astronaut, now’s your chance!

Flight OptionsOnce you’ve decided that a space vacation is the thing for you, you’ll need to consider the different options available to you. They include zero-gravity flights, suborbital flights, and orbital flights. Each flight option depends on how adventurous you are—and how much money you can spend.

Zero-gravity flights stay closest to planet Earth. During these flights, a modified jet airplane flies a series of high loops. This allows passengers to experience the sensation of being weightless, similar to what astronauts experience when they’re in space. Sound dangerous? It’s not. These planes have padded walls and few seats so guests will not hurt themselves while floating around. Also, with a price tag of $5,000 per person, zero-gravity flights are the most economical of all space-flight options.

Suborbital flights go farther from Earth. Highly specialized rocket airplanes fly to about 62 miles above the planet. That’s far enough to see Earth as it looks from space. The flight takes an entire day and will cost about $200,000.

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If that isn’t far enough and you dream of seeing views familiar only to astronauts, you might opt for an orbital flight. These excursions, which are well above Earth’s atmosphere, take several days and can cost up to $20 million per trip. And if that isn’t thrilling enough, you can add a personal spacewalk to the trip for another $15 million—so, start saving now!

In the Distant FutureIn time, the public will have even more options. Ambitious space cruises to the far side of the moon have been planned and will cost each passenger approximately $100 million. Space engineers have even designed a space elevator! The elevator car would move on a cable stretching from Earth all the way up to a satellite in space. The price of this trip hasn’t been determined—but you can be sure it won’t be cheap.

If simply traveling to space isn’t enough for you, one day, you may be able to book a room at a space hotel. Some developers have already created designs

One day, passengers will take an elevator to a satellite located above Earth.

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for a hotel that will accommodate six guests. The hotel will circle Earth in just 90 minutes. During the speedy journey, guests will be able to experience 16 sunrises and sunsets in a single day! And like all other space adventures described in this article, the hotel doesn’t come cheap. A single stay is expected to cost about $4.5 million and would require eight weeks of training.

Start Planning—Now!With such high price tags and futuristic accommodations, you might think that space flights and hotels will not appeal to most people. However, many companies have conducted polls in Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United States to see if people are interested in space tourism. The polls indicate that 60 percent to 80 percent of those surveyed are eager to have a space adventure.

In fact, thousands of people have already signed up to become space tourists over the next few years. And once they’ve completed their journeys and demonstrated that the trips are safe and comfortable, spaceflight companies estimate that millions of people will want to sign up.

So, what are you waiting for, space enthusiasts? Call your travel agent today!

Photos: p. 1: © Europics/Newscom; p. 3br: © Christian Darkin/Science Source

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Pitch PerfectEri Yoshida has used a very tricky pitch called the knuckleball to earn a special place for herself in the history of baseball.By Elias Ismay

When it comes to baseball, Eri Yoshida is in a league of her own. She was the first woman to play in one of Japan’s all-male professional leagues—and the first Japanese woman to play professional men’s baseball in the United States. What’s the secret to her success? It has to do with a very special pitch.

Eri Yoshida has played professional baseball in the United States and Japan.

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Early YearsEri Yoshida was born on January 17, 1992, in Yokohama, Japan. She began playing baseball when she was eight years old because she wanted to be like her brother, who also played the sport. In middle school, she played first base on an all-boys team.

Her father felt she needed an edge to play successfully against boys, so one day, he showed her a video of an American pitcher named Tim Wakefield, who at the time, played for the Major League Baseball team, the Boston Red Sox.

Wakefield did not throw traditional pitches, like fastballs or curveballs, that most other pitchers typically used. Instead, he threw a very unusual kind of pitch called a knuckleball, which is thrown with only the tips of the fingers and the thumb gripping the baseball. (Originally, the pitch was thrown using just the knuckles to grip the ball. A few pitchers still do it that way.)

When thrown correctly, a knuckleball has no spin. It moves in unpredictable ways through the air, making it very hard for batters to hit. And because a knuckleball is thrown slowly, a pitcher does not need to be very strong. It seemed perfect for Yoshida, so she studied the pitch for two years before she felt comfortable throwing it in a game.

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Eri Yoshida presents her jersey to National Baseball Hall of Fame official Brad Horn.

Going ProYoshida was determined to be a professional baseball player, but there was one problem—at the time, there was no professional women’s baseball league in Japan. So in 2008, 16-year-old Yoshida decided to try out for Japan’s new, and all-male, Kansai Independent League. Yoshida impressed the coaches with her skill so much that they offered her a contract with the Kobe 9 Cruise, one of four teams in the league. No woman had played against male professional baseball players in Japan before. Yoshida happily accepted.

The young player made her professional debut on March 26, 2009, in a game against the Osaka Gold Villicanes. She faced two batters, walking one and striking out the other. She finished the season with no wins and two losses, but her fans still called her the Knuckle Princess.

Hitting the RoadAfter her season with the Kobe 9 Cruise, Yoshida traveled to the United States to play professional ball. She first played in an instructional league that

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develops the skills of players who may one day play for a Major League Baseball team. One of her biggest thrills came when she met Tim Wakefield, who gave her pointers on throwing the knuckleball. Meeting Wakefield “gave me some courage and the confidence I need to really get back to training hard,” she said.

In April 2010, Yoshida joined California’s Chico Outlaws of the Golden Baseball League. She received a memorable honor that season when the uniform and bat she used in her first game were displayed at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

“I realize how big a deal this is,” said Yoshida when she heard the news. “I’m so proud and honored to be a part of it.”

Photos: p. 1: © Robert Durell/Reuters; p. 3tr: © Douglas Keister/Corbis/Getty Images

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Mexican American cowgirls perform choreographed moves on horseback.

Rockin’ RidersMexican American cowgirls honor their roots by competing on horseback in choreographed rodeo events.By Siobhán McGowan

If you’ve ever been part of a marching band or a synchronized dance crew, you know how challenging it can be to get everyone to perform the exact same steps at the exact same time. If just one person turns left when they’re supposed to

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twirl right, the whole group comes tumbling down like a chain of dominoes! So imagine how much harder it would be to coordinate your movements while wearing a heavy, floor-length dress and a stiff, broad-brimmed sombrero. And if that doesn’t sound challenging enough, try it while riding sidesaddle atop a spirited 1,000-pound horse! That’s escaramuza, one of the most popular—and probably the most fashionable—events of Mexican-style rodeos called charreadas. Performed, according to tradition, by females only, the sport has become a way for Latina girls who live north of the border to honor their roots.

Challenging Moves Riders’ costumes are brightly colored interpretations of those once worn by soldaderas, female soldiers, during the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920).

During the exhibition, teams of eight riders must execute a series of moves while mariachi music plays over the loudspeakers. Sometimes all eight horses prance forward in a rodeo chorus line. Other times, riders break off into pairs of two and rotate around the ring like fans on a pinwheel. Occasionally, one half of the team thunders at full gallop toward the other, trading places. Then each individual rider races forward to a sliding stop, or punta, in front of the judges.

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Every detail in a costume must be perfect, so charras often get help while dressing.

Perfecting such moves is no easy feat. The charras, or cowgirls, train for hours after school and on weekends, clocking their sets down to the second on a stopwatch. Every bit helps, as riders are judged partly on the quality of their routines.

Coordinating Costumes In addition to the moves, judges pay close attention to the competitors’ costumes, which must match right down to the smallest detail.

“The judge checks every detail,” says Berta, a rider on the Perla Tapatía team in Arizona. “Our skirts must have at least one ruffle at the bottom, with a sash tied on the left. Blouses are high collared. The petticoat must have one ruffle and be starched until it’s crunchy to touch. We have to wear white bloomers, no jeans, no pockets, and nothing sleeveless.” Still, Berta admits, the old-school ways of the competition don’t stop some girls from sneaking cell phones into their boots!

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Growing in Popularity Despite the training demands and strict dress code, escaramuza is growing in popularity in the United States, with teams in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.

The champion team in each state advances to regional and then national events. The ultimate goal is to compete in the world finals in Mexico. Qualifying is a major accomplishment, but many girls would agree it’s not the main reason they ride.

“When I’m on the horse and performing, it gives me chills every time,” says 17-year-old Adriana Jimenez, a member of Virginia’s Las Amazonas del Dorado team. “Inside, you feel this great happiness, and it fills me up with pride inside to be from a place so full of culture and life and color.”

Photos: p. 1: © Kathy McCraine; p. 3br: © Eliana Aponte/Reuters

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A prisoner prepares for his role as King Lear, a character from a play by William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare Behind BarsInmates at a Wisconsin prison perform Shakespearean plays—and transform their troubled lives in the process.By Siobhán McGowan

At first, the Shakespeare Prison Project couldn’t seem stranger: hardened prisoners locked up in the American Midwest performing plays written by a

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famous English writer who lived more than 400 years ago. And yet, as the inmates at the Racine Correctional Institute in Wisconsin have discovered, the works of William Shakespeare—which touch upon deceit, murder, and lost loves— somehow perfectly convey the tragedy of their own lives.

“It’s an opportunity for us to see something in ourselves that others don’t see,” said one inmate. Playing the part of the Fool in King Lear showed him “how much of a fool I’ve been in my life.”

“This lets me vent out my frustration. It lets me vent out my sadness,” added another prisoner, who performed the role of King Lear’s abandoned daughter in the same production. “I’ve never actually done that.”

Redemption Through Art The idea for the project comes from Jonathan Shailor, a communications professor at the University of Wisconsin who volunteers at the Racine prison. Having the prisoners portray the all-too-human characters in Shakespeare’s plays, Shailor reasoned, could have a healing effect.

Performing such roles as the tormented Prince Hamlet who sought to avenge his father’s death, the troublemaking Puck of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or the mad King Lear, could teach the men

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Prisoners put on a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

to better understand the motivations behind their own poor choices. So, when confronted with problems in the future, whether within prison walls or back out in the real world, they’d be better equipped not to make the same mistakes again.

“Shakespeare inspires people to reach for this higher level of excellence,” explains Shailor.

Production Process Production for each play spans 12 months. During this time, the participants spend five hours a week studying the work. After auditions are held and the play is cast, they attend rehearsals and help create sets and props. Due to safety concerns, not even toy swords are permitted: for a production of Julius Caesar, prisoners brandished foam wands instead, and wore red gloves to signify blood.

During rehearsals, inmates are guided to thoroughly understand each character’s actions—and the reasons behind them. This process often prompts inmates to analyze their own motivations.

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Transformed Lives The Shakespeare Prison Project has had a profound effect on many of its participants. For some, it creates empathy. For others, the result is improved conflict-resolution skills. For some, it’s a new outlook on life.

One inmate states that performing in the play was the only thing that helped him overcome his anger and grief after his conviction. Shortly before a production of King Lear, he was granted a transfer to a minimum-security prison, but he requested his move be delayed so that he could go on with the show.

“My legacy is not going to be as . . . a convict,” he vowed. “My legacy is what I do from now on.”

Photos: p. 1: © Robert Sabo/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images; p. 3tr: © Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images

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Many teens have been inspired to vote in recent elections—but many are ineligible because they are too young.

Sixteen Candles— and a Vote? In the United States, the legal voting age is 18. Some say it should be lowered, but others worry that teens just aren’t ready!By Pam Belluck

Britten Shelson, a high school senior, felt very strongly about casting a ballot in the presidential election. “It’s one of the things I was most looking

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forward to about turning 18,” Shelson says, “and I think everyone should want to have a say.”

Even so, Shelson opposes lowering the voting age to 16. “There’s a big difference between 16 and 18,” she explains.

The last time Americans seriously debated the voting age was more than 40 years ago, when citizens had to be at least 21 years old to cast a ballot in an election. At the time, the Vietnam War was raging, and men as young as 18 were being ordered to fight. Many Americans found it unfair that young men 18 to 20 years old could fight and die for their country, but had no say in how the country was run. That changed in 1971, when the government instituted a voting age of 18. Today, many countries allow even younger voters to cast ballots. For example, Brazil, Cuba, and Nicaragua have long allowed 16-year-olds to vote—and in 2007, Austria joined them. Should the United States be next?

Those in FavorIn recent years, a number of US lawmakers in states such as Arizona, Minnesota, and New Jersey have proposed reducing the voting age. In California, one state senator even suggested giving 16-year-olds half a vote in state elections, and

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The voting age in the United States has been 18 since 1971.

14-year-olds a quarter-vote. Supporters say that young people know enough to cast ballots wisely. They also think lowering the voting age would bring attention to issues of interest to young people, such as education and the environment.

Teens as young as 16 are already trusted with important responsibilities. For example, many hold jobs and help support their families—and in some states, they’re even allowed to drive. “If we trust them to drive at 16, why don’t we trust them to vote?” asks Phyllis Kahn, a Minnesota State Representative, who has proposed lowering the voting age to 16 in her state. Kahn adds to her position by stating that “an irresponsible driver can do much more harm than an irresponsible voter.”

Some experts who study teens agree with Kahn’s opinion. “Yesterday’s 18-year-olds are today’s 16-year-olds,” says Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

Those OpposedNot everyone favors lowering the voting age. Opponents say 16-year-olds are not as mature or

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experienced as older voters, and they question whether young people know enough about important issues. Fifteen-year-old Amanda Carbonneau echoes their concerns. “I think that a lot of kids around 16 or 15 aren’t really up-to-date on the current politics and wouldn’t really be able to make an informed decision,” she says.

Sociologists Tak Wing Chan and Matthew Clayton would agree with Carbonneau. In 2006, they conducted a study on teen voting. They surveyed adolescents on their opinions concerning current affairs as well their general knowledge about politics. The results? Those under 18 failed to score high on the survey. Chan and Clayton argued that “these teens simply aren’t mature enough to take part in the political process.”

Change Is UnlikelyOpponents on both sides of the issues make convincing arguments. However, it doesn’t seem likely that the voting age in the United States will change anytime soon. But the debate will probably continue for some time.

What do you think about the issue?

Photos: p. 1: © Winslow Productions/Getty Images; p. 3tr: © Tetra Images/Media Bakery

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So You Want to Be a Web Star?As long as you’ve got a passion to share and are camera ready, it could happen!By Siobhán McGowan

Who isn’t trying to brand themselves on the Internet these days? When singer Shawn Mendes was starting out, he attracted the attention of music fans by posting videos of himself performing online. A contract with a major record deal soon followed.

Many teens are making a profit by filming their own web series and posting them to video-sharing sites.

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Comedian Glozell Green was discovered by talent scouts when they came across the funny routines that she uploaded to a popular video-sharing site. And let’s not forget Paige Mackenzie, who at age 16 created a spooky web series called The Haunting of Sunshine Girl. So many teens tuned in each month to watch her videos, that a major publishing company took notice and offered her a deal to write a book inspired by the series. A television show is also in the works!

The global reach of the web can help anyone, anywhere connect with an audience, and possibly earn some money in the process. But cyberspace is also filled with lots of nonsensical videos that are just desperate for views, embeds, and comments. So, if you want the world to see you, hear your heartbreaking acoustic ballads, learn how to make your ingenious origami creatures, or copy your glamorous contouring skills—what’s the best way to begin? By learning from the experts, of course! The quick primer below will get you started in the footsteps of those who have gone viral before you.

Step One: Set Up Your Channel Depending on your email provider, you probably already have the option to create a channel linked to your account. Your channel represents who you are and what you’re about. For its title, you could use a variation of your name. But to

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optimize search results and attract viewers to your site, you might also consider including terms that identify what you’ll be doing in your videos. Keeping the channel name short, cute, and/or catchy will make it easier to remember. For example, if you plan to share baking videos, “Lisa Green—Cupcake Queen,” is more likely to attract recipe seekers than would a nondescript name like “It’s Lisa!”

In your channel settings, you should also add relevant keywords. For example, fictitious Lisa Green might add vanilla, chocolate, chocolate chip, red velvet, baking, baking for kids, birthday recipes, birthday parties, creative frosting, and minicupcakes to her list.

Step Two: Load Content By content we mean your original videos. Make them as crisp, clear, and professional as possible. Most cell phones come equipped with good-quality cameras. If your little brother doesn’t have steady enough hands to film you for five minutes straight, set the camera on a tripod or level surface for stability. Confirm that

Paige Mackenzie was offered a book deal after a publisher noticed her popular web series.

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you’re framed front and center, in focus, and well lit. Speak (or, if you’re a singer, sing!) clearly enough to be understood, and keep the vibe conversational. If you’re overly scripted, it could come across as awkward and stiff.

Since viewers’ attention spans are short these days, your videos should be too. (In other words, wait until you’re famous before unleashing your four-hour hip-hop opera on the masses.) Even if your videos are a bit amateur to start, don’t worry—that can be part of their charm. You’ll get better with practice—which you’ll be getting a lot of. That’s because the most important part of video blogging—or “vlogging”—is supplying content on a steady schedule. If your fans know that you post a new video every Saturday afternoon, they’ll be more likely to tune in for it. Which brings us to . . .

Step Three: Connect With Viewers Just as you did with the channel itself, tag your videos with keywords that will drive viewers to them from search engines. If you have other social media accounts, cross post your videos there. Tell all your friends to watch—and to share. Then establish a relationship with your fans by replying to comments they leave. Just prepare yourself for trolls. They’re inevitable, unfortunately. The best thing is to just ignore the haters and remain cool.

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Step Four: Cash In, if You Can You can post to your heart’s content and rack up tens of thousands of page views, but the only way to make money off your videos is to allow ads to run at their start. Each time an ad plays in full before your videos, that view gets calculated; multiple ad views can gradually add up to payment from the host site. Clicking the monetization tab for each of your individual videos will enable ads. Your host site will also provide information about how to set up a linked bank account where payments will be deposited. As a minor, you’ll need your parents or another trusted adult to authorize this.

That’s it! It’s not hard, really—not if you’re committed to creating quality, compelling content that showcases your unique talents and personality. After you’ve got a batch of videos up on your channel, you can check your analytics—specific data about who’s watching what, when. This will let you see which videos are resonating with viewers, so that you can better target their interests in future posts. Even if the money doesn’t exactly come pouring in, your channel can still serve as a fresh and innovative way to present yourself to everyone from college admissions officers to internship employers. So what are you waiting for? Grab your guitar, your makeup brushes, or your mixing bowls, and start recording!

Photos: p. 1: © vgajic/Getty Images; p. 3tr: © Brent N. Clarke/Film Magic/Getty Images

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Athlete Stephani Victor lost her legs in an accident, so she uses a specialized ski called a monoski to cruise down the slopes.

Super SkierWhen it comes to mastering the ski slopes, Stephani Victor relies on determination, talent, and physics.

By Cody Crane

Stephani Victor is a force on the ski slopes. She is an alpine skier who seems to rocket almost effortlessly down snowy mountainsides—and what’s even more amazing is that she does it while seated, balanced on a single ski.

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From Tragedy to TriumphVictor is a paraplegic athlete. She lost her legs in 1995, after being hit by a car. For Victor, who had always been physically active, the loss was a tough one. Still, she was determined to stay active. While recovering from the accident, she decided to try skiing. Experts provided her with a special piece of equipment called a monoski, which consists of a seat attached to a ski by a large spring.

“Sports were really life saving,” recalls Victor, “because they showed me that I could still be independent and active.”

Victor’s appreciation for skiing grew—as did her abilities. Eventually, she began racing competitively and even represented the United States at multiple Paralympic Games—a sporting event for people with physical disabilities that’s held every four years. Victor won five medals at these games!

While Stephani Victor’s natural talent is undeniable, she admits that she could not have gotten to this level of competition without practice and a strong understanding of physics. “Knowing how my body and equipment respond to Earth’s forces is key,” says Victor.

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Stephani Victor proudly holds a silver medal at the 2010 Winter Paralympics.

Speed Racer ScienceParalympic alpine skiers have been clocked at speeds up to 65 miles per hour. Helping them zip along the slopes is gravity—a downward force that acts on all objects. Getting to the finish line also requires good technique. In the slalom, one of Stephani Victor’s winning events, skiers must maneuver around a series of gates that are staked throughout the downhill course.

So how do monoskiers keep their balance during this winding course? They use two “outriggers,” which are modified ski poles with tiny skis at the ends. According to Victor, the outriggers are helpful, but experienced racers try to use the poles as little as possible. Why? “The outriggers create friction (a sticking force) between the ski and snow—and that will slow you down,” she says.

Carving It UpIn addition to keeping their balance, skiers try complete the course in the quickest time possible. This requires them to maintain their speed as they move around each gate. How do they do this

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without falling? “The most effective way to initiate a turn is to shift your center of mass forward,” says Victor. This forward shift drives Victor’s ski tip into the snow. With more force on the tip of the ski than on the back, the ski turns without sacrificing speed.

The spring that connects the seat of the monoski to the ski also helps Victor turn. “It does what knees do for a standing skier,” says Victor. The spring compresses, or presses together, as she rounds a gate. The spring then rebounds as she pulls out of the turn, allowing for a smooth ride down the mountain.

Looking ForwardStephani Victor’s knowledge of ski science and her natural talent have led to many wins, but there have been a few mishaps along the way. In 2014, she took a terrible spill while maneuvering down a mountain. The accident resulted in weeks of physical therapy for Victor.

Despite the setback, Victor remained upbeat. “It’s all about keeping a positive attitude,” she said. Victor is currently training in Utah for future Paralympic Games.

Photos: p. 1: © Bonny Makarewicz/EPA/Newscom; p. 3tr: © Jamie McDonald/Getty Images

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Taking Center StageThe China Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe puts on a performance that’s unlike anything you have seen before.By Lillian Mayfield

One performance art troupe from China is getting a lot of attention for an exciting show called My Dream. The show involves many elements—including instrumental music, singing, high-flying acrobatics,

Twenty-one dancers who are deaf and mute perform the “Dance of a Thousand Hands”—one of the most popular numbers in a show called My Dream.

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and dance. Still, that isn’t the most impressive part. All of the performers in the troupe are disabled! The group, known as the China Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe (CDPPAT), consists of 80 performers who have many different disabilities—some cannot see or hear, while others are unable to walk. But one thing they share in common is talent!

Making It HappenDuring the performance, the dancers move in perfect time to the music—and with each other—even though many of them cannot see or hear. How do they do it? A coach offstage uses hand signals to mark the beat for deaf dancers. These dancers also keep the beat by feeling the vibrations of the music on the stage floor. Meanwhile, blind dancers hold on to a rope that’s attached to a collar of a specially trained dog. A choreographer instructs the dog in which direction to move. As the dog moves, so does the rope, and the dancers follow.

Dancers with other disabilities participate, as well. One dancer, Huang Yangguang, has no arms. “Being onstage fulfills me,” explains Yangguang, ”because through my dance I can express feelings and get the audience to understand how people with disabilities feel.”

In addition to dance, instrumental music and singing are major parts of the show. One musician,

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who suffers from a disease that has made his bones soft, plays a two-stringed Chinese violin called an erhu. And two blind brothers sing songs in 30 different languages.

Show StopperMy Dream has many exciting numbers, but perhaps the most popular among fans and critics is a dance called the “Dance of a Thousand Hands.” Twenty-one deaf dancers in sparkling golden costumes pretend to be a god called Buddha. The god has 42 hands, so the dancers line up one behind another. From the front, they look like one golden god! When they dance—lifting, waving, and circling their hands—their 42 hands look like the god’s hands.

A Global HitMy Dream is the latest of many performances that have made the CDPPAT famous. The troupe has been doing shows since 1987, when about 30 disabled people, who wanted to express themselves through art, decided to join the group. Since then, the CDPPAT has performed throughout China and in more than 60 countries around the globe. In addition, the group has raised hundreds of

A choreographer works with deaf and mute dancers as they rehearse the “Dance of a Thousand Hands.”

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thousands of dollars for charities that benefit the disabled. One proud performance was at the closing ceremony for the 2004 Paralympic Games, which is a major sporting event for disabled athletes. The performance honored the athletes and reinforced the message that a disability should never be an obstacle to success.

“It was an incredible and beautiful moment that moved me to tears,” said Dimitris Papaioannou, the artistic director of the closing ceremony. “And judging by the standing ovation from the crowd, I think they agree.”

Photos: p. 1: © Zhong Min/FeatureChina/Newscom; p.3tr: © Jason Lee/Reuters

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The Art of ProstheticsMeet a designer who’s turning artificial limbs into wearable art.By Siobhán McGowan

Glittering crystals. Iridescent black feathers. Futuristic lasers. No, these aren’t the latest trends sported by models on fashion runways, nor are they futuristic accessories worn by characters in the

This prosthetic leg, which features pearls, crystals, and lace, is anything but ordinary.

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hottest science fiction movie. Instead, they are the “bling” that make up a series of prosthetic limbs designed by artist Sophie de Oliveira Barata. That’s right—prosthetics. And they are quickly changing the way the public perceives those who wear them.

“It’s drawing attention to their disability in a positive way,” explains de Oliveira Barata. “Rather than people seeing what’s missing, it’s about what they’ve got. They’re claiming control and saying, ‘I’m an individual and this reflects who I am.’”

Finding Inspiration De Oliveira Barata, who works out of her brightly lit studio in north London, has a background in art and a degree in special effects for film and television. She began her career as a sculptor crafting realistic prosthetics for a top manufacturer in the United Kingdom. However, it wasn’t until one of her youngest clients requested some unusual frills that inspired the artist to take a different approach to her work.

Pollyanna Hope had lost her leg in a bus accident when she was only two years old. “I’d make a new limb for her each year because she was growing,” the artist recalls, “and every year she wanted something different. It started with little cartoon

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pigs, all eating ice cream. The next year she wanted a whole holiday scene.”

By having her prosthetic custom designed, Pollyanna turned the process of getting fitted for a new limb into something she looked forward to. Her family and friends started looking forward to it too, wondering what new decoration she and de Oliveira Barata would come up with. “It became an exciting event because I could see the positive effect it was having on Pollyanna,” the artist says.

The experience inspired de Oliveira Barata to launch “AltLimbPro,”a line of custom prosthetics that reflect the wearer’s style and personality.

Personal Style To get a sense of a person’s style, favorite colors, and overall vibe, de Oliveira Barata instructs each new client to bring lots of inspirational images to their first brainstorming session. A combination of photography, casting, and 3-D scans is then used to begin constructing the limb. De Oliveira Barata sculpts with thin, square layers

One client requested a prosthetic arm that looked like it belonged on a robot.

Some of de Oliveira Barata’s clients have unusual requests—like this python-wrapped arm!

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of silicon, and often collaborates with other artists and technicians skilled in areas such as robotics and metalwork. Depending on the detail of the design, the process can take up to six months. Her clients’ reaction to the final product makes the labor and time worth it.

“My arm makes me feel powerful, different . . .,” says Jo-Jo Cranfield, a para-triathlete and motivational speaker whose showstopping artificial arm features a vivid green snake coiling in and around her skin.

“I wear mine with pride,” says Grace Mandeville, an actress whose prosthetic arm is made of beautifully exotic feathers. “I’m into fashion, and I thought, ‘What’s more awesome than ‘feather armor’?’”

De Oliveira Barata couldn’t agree more. “After losing a limb, a person isn’t the same,” de Oliveira Barata says. “So this is a form of expression, an empowerment, a celebration. It’s their choice of how to complete their body—whether that means having a realistic match or something from their imagination.”

Photos: p. 1: © Nadav Kander and Omkaar Kotedia/Courtesy Sophie de Oliveira Barata/AltLimbPro, inset: © Omkaar Kotedia/Courtesy Sophie de Oliveira Barata/AltLimbPro; p. 3br: Omkaar Kotedia/Courtesy Sophie de Oliveira Barata/AltLimbPro; p. 4tr: © Rosemary Williams/Courtesy Sophie de Oliveira Barata/AltLimbPro

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Many Americans are demanding that the federal minimum wage be increased to $15.

The Bare MinimumMore than 20 million Americans are paid minimum or near-minimum wage. Would raising the federal rate help or hurt them? By Siobhán McGowan

In the 1930s, the US economy was in shambles and many Americans were struggling to make ends meet. Employers could set hourly wages to any amount they wanted—so they took advantage

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of their workers and lowered the rate to mere pennies. As a result, many Americans could no longer afford to buy food. In 1938, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to remedy the problem by signing the Fair Labor Standards Act. This law established a minimum wage, or the smallest amount a person could be paid. The minimum hourly rate back then was 25 cents—and it was just enough for many Americans to buy basic items that they needed to survive.

Since then, the price of goods has risen—and the federal minimum wage has been increased every few years to meet these rising prices. In 2009, the federal minimum wage was raised to $7.25 per hour and has not increased since.

So, how does that number match up to today’s living costs? Let’s break this down: if an employee works full time, at least 40 hours per week, that adds up to a salary of $15,080 per year. That’s very little money for people who are trying to support themselves and their families. According to the 2015 federal guidelines, the poverty threshold for a single person is $11,770. For a household of two—a single parent with one child, it’s $15,930. These stark numbers show how impossible it is to survive in today’s economy on such a low income.

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Fast-food workers have demanded an increase of the federal minimum wage.

The condition has prompted many workers from low-paying sectors such as retail and fast food to stage protests and lobby for the rate to be increased to $15. The adjustment seems fair, so why are some economists and politicians strongly opposed to it?

Those Opposed Some experts argue that a wage increase would hurt low-wage workers. They argue, if employers who are operating within a fixed budget suddenly have to start paying employees higher wages, they would have to compensate for this extra expense by cutting employees’ hours or eliminating some jobs.

Furthermore, to ensure a profit, businesses would likely raise the price of their products. So, workers earning $15 per hour would find themselves in the same predicament they were in before the minimum wage increase—unable to afford the high cost of goods. In other words, the increase in prices would cancel out their raises.

“It’s not helping as many or as large a portion of the labor market as you probably would like,” says

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Jonathan Guryan, an economist at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research.

Those in Favor Advocates of the federal minimum wage increase claim that higher salaries help businesses by improving employee loyalty and productivity, since people getting paid better are more invested in keeping their jobs. A stable workforce and less staff turnover will benefit companies by reducing the cost of training new hires.

Supporters of an increase also emphasize that higher wages would help stimulate the economy: workers earning more will spend more. One report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago concluded that households with at least one minimum-wage worker would increase their spending by almost $3,000 annually!

In addition, an increased demand for goods and services would lead to the creation of more jobs and set into motion a positive cycle of growth.

“It’s been too long since the last increase,” says David Cooper, senior economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. “When you consider cost of living, the lowest-paid worker in 1968 was making 24 percent more than that same worker today. That’s not acceptable.”

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The American Public Weighs In So, how do most Americans feel about the issue? A 2015 poll sponsored by the National Employment Law Project found that 63 percent of Americans favor increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour over the next five years, while 75 percent support an increase to $12.50.

“The findings here are very clear: Americans, regardless of region, socioeconomic status, or demographic distinction, strongly favor a very significant increase in the federal minimum wage,” said Guy Molyneux, a researcher who helped conduct the poll. “Now, it’s up to the government to respond.”

Photos: p. 1: © Peter Foley EPA/Alamy Stock Photo; p. 3br: © Jim West/Alamy Stock Photo

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The Muckraker vs. the Millionaire John D. Rockefeller had the most powerful company in the United States—that is, until Ida Tarbell came along.By Janet Reitman

Journalist Ida Tarbell understood the power of a pen. Her articles exposed corruption in the oil industry and helped break up the empire of one of America’s most powerful men—John D. Rockefeller.

Ida Tarbell was a journalist who specialized in writing stories about corruption.

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Rockefeller Takes OverIn 1863, Rockefeller formed a company called the Standard Oil Trust, which specialized in producing, refining, and transporting oil. In less than a decade, the company became the largest of its kind. Rockefeller made hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result—but for him, it just wasn’t enough.

Rockefeller wanted to increase his fortune, so he started buying companies that offered similar products and services. This reduced Rockefeller’s competition and increased his company’s chances of being the one people most often used. Soon, Rockefeller took over all of his competitors, and renamed his now giant organization the Standard Oil Company.

Although it was common and legal for large organizations to purchase some competing companies, it was against the law for an organization to purchase all of its competition—the same law still holds true today. Such all-controlling businesses are called monopolies, and they make it impossible for any new businesses to succeed.

A Reporter Cracks the CaseIn the 1870s, industry insiders began to leak rumors that Standard Oil Company had become a monopoly, and one of the first reporters to hear the news was Ida Tarbell.

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John D. Rockefeller (left), who is shown here with his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was one of the wealthiest men in the United States.

Tarbell wasn’t a typical reporter—she was a “muckraker.” These reporters exposed corruption in the business world by digging up muck, or dirt, about companies. So when Tarbell heard the information, she decided to investigate.

For two years, Tarbell researched the Standard Oil Company and wrote many articles about her findings. It was a risky job because business people, like Rockefeller and other partners of Standard Oil, could retaliate and use their influence to end Tarbell’s career. Still, Tarbell persisted, and fearlessly published all the information she could find. Her series of articles—called The History of the Standard Oil Company—was published between 1902 and 1904. The series revealed in great detail the dishonest and unlawful methods that Rockefeller used to control the US oil industry.

The Government Steps InTarbell’s articles led the government to take action against Rockefeller’s giant corporation. The monopoly had to end. In 1911, the US

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Supreme Court ordered that the Standard Oil Company be broken up.

The decision affected the future of American business. Standard Oil was split into 34 smaller companies. Some became Chevron, Exxon, and Mobil. They continued to dominate the oil market—but not to the extent that the original monopoly did.

Tarbell had succeeded in her mission! She became famous as the woman who brought down Standard Oil—with a few strokes of a pen.

Photos: p. 1: © Bettmann/Getty Images; p. 3tr: © PhotoQuest/Getty Images

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The Sky’s the Limit!Pilot Barrington Irving flew around the world—and made history in the process.By Katrin Bennhold and Katie Hafner

When airplane pilot Barrington Irving was just 23 years old, he embarked on an incredible journey: he flew solo around the world in a single-engine plane and became the youngest pilot—and the first black person—ever to achieve this goal.

Pilot Barrington Irving greets people after arriving in Miami from his around-the-world adventure.

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Irving’s accomplishment was undoubtedly one for the record books, but getting to this incredible moment was a journey in itself.

Hard TimesBarrington Irving grew up in Miami, Florida, in a neighborhood that was dangerous and ridden with crime. Many of his classmates dropped out of school or ended up in jail. These unfortunate circumstances gave Irving little hope for the future.

“There were times when I didn’t think I would live past my 25th birthday,” he recalls.

Dreams of a New LifeThe one thing that did give Irving hope was football. He was one of the top players on his high school team and dreamed of playing the sport professionally one day. At the time, he didn’t think there were many career options for a mediocre student like himself from a tough neighborhood.

However, that all changed when he turned 15. While working at his parents’ bookstore, Irving met a customer—Captain Gary Robinson, a Jamaican American airline pilot. “I was surprised because I had never seen a black pilot before,” said Irving.

Sensing the young teen’s excitement, Captain Robinson shared many stories about his background

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and experiences in aviation. He even asked Irving if he had ever thought about becoming a pilot.

“I didn’t think I was smart enough,” recalls Irving, “but that changed when he invited me on a tour of his jet.” The experience was a transformative one, and at that point, Irving’s dreams of playing football were replaced with dreams of flying. He vowed to one day follow in the footsteps of Captain Robinson and become a commercial airplane pilot.

During high school, Irving spent as much time as he could at the local airport, where he learned to fly and earned his pilot’s license. Then, after graduating from high school, he won a partial scholarship to study aeronautical science in college, bringing him one step closer to his goal.

Aiming HigherAfter graduating college, Irving couldn’t have been more excited about his future. He had gone from being a kid with few prospects to feeling like he could achieve almost anything. At that point, he decided to put his career as a commercial airplane

Barrington Irving’s life was transformed when he met Captain Gary Robinson in his parents’ bookstore.

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pilot on hold temporarily—and aim even higher. He was going to fly around the world—solo.

Initially, many people expressed concerns about Irving’s decision. “People thought I was too young and inexperienced,” Irving recalls, “but I like to prove people wrong.”

Before Irving could embark on his adventure, he needed a plane. So, he appealed to many airplane manufacturers for help, and convinced them to donate parts, such as tires, an engine, and the cockpit systems. Using these donations, Irving built a small, single-engine plane, which he named Inspiration. He said he chose the name “because that’s what I hope to be for younger people.”

Taking OffOn March 23, 2007, the day of Irving’s departure had arrived. Many spectators—especially kids—who had heard of Irving’s story from local news reports showed up to Miami-Opa Loca Executive Airport to wish him well.

Irving waved to them as he took off from Miami and flew northeast. His first stop was St. John’s, Canada before heading to Europe. He traveled to 26 cities, including Athens, Greece; Cairo, Egypt; and Hong Kong, China. During his trip, he

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battled heavy rains, snowstorms, and strong winds. He tried not to think about the worst that could happen and remained focused on his mission. He also stayed in touch with kids and other fans by communicating with them through his website. “Their enthusiasm kept me going—especially during those challenging moments,” he said later.

At last, after flying 26,800 miles over 97 days, Irving touched down in Miami, Florida on June 27. His flight was over! News reporters and young fans came from all over the state to greet and congratulate him.

Inspiring OthersAfter his trip, Irving has continued to aim high

by making a difference in the lives of kids in the same way that Captain Robinson made a difference in his life. He started a nonprofit organization called Aviation Education—which teaches kids how to build and fly planes, and exposes them to many different careers in math and science.

“I feel blessed that I had a chance, so why not use that to inspire kids and make a positive impact on their lives?” Irving said. “I want all kids to believe that they are talented, powerful, and important, and can make a difference in the world.”

Photos: p. 1: © Marianne Armshaw/WENN/Newscom; p. 3tr: © Jon Ross Photography

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Native American soldiers used their language to create and send secret wartime messages.

Unbreakable CodesNative American soldiers used their languages to create top-secret codes.By Phoebe Hunter

Early in World War II, an American marine radio operator who was stationed on an island in the Pacific heard over his headset something that sounded like gibberish. “What’s going on?” he asked, sounding confused.

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What he didn’t know at the time was that the Marine Corps was performing a top-secret experiment. Specially trained soldiers from the Navajo tribe were sending coded messages back and forth in their own complex language to see if anyone could understand—or decode them. The experiment proved a success: not a single non-Navajo speaker could break the code.

The language would soon be used by US forces to transmit confidential information—and ultimately helped the Americans and their allies win the Second World War in 1945.

Unbreakable CodeWorld War II wasn’t the first time that US forces used Native American languages in battle. More than 25 years earlier, during World War I, US forces were in a fight against Germany and its allies. During this war, US commanders had to communicate important information about battle plans, and locations of troops and supplies, over great distances. They often transmitted this information via radio messages, but the messages were often intercepted by the Germans. To keep the Germans from discovering their secret plans, US commanders began transmitting the messages in code. However, the Germans often cracked the codes. As a result, they learned where US supplies

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and troops were, and then they planned their own attacks.

The US desperately needed a code that the Germans could not crack. And Native American soldiers from the Choctaw tribe found the perfect solution by creating a code using their native language.

Choctaw is one of many Native American languages. Like the Navajo language, it is very complicated. Few people outside the tribal community speak the language, so it is almost completely unknown outside the United States. Such factors make Choctaw an excellent code language.

The Choctaw code was an amazing success. The Germans never broke the code, and the US and its allies won the war.

Doing It AgainWhen World War II began, in 1939, military commanders remembered the Choctaw codes. This time, the US and its allies fought against Germany, Japan, and Italy. Once again, US commanders asked Native Americans to make secret codes—but this time, they used Navajo words instead of Choctaw, and Navajo code talkers delivered the messages.

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Once again, the enemy could not break the codes. The victory of the US and its allies in 1945 was due in part to the code talkers. However, military leaders asked the code talkers to keep quiet about the codes. They wanted the codes to remain a secret in case the government needed to use them again.

Honoring the Code TalkersFinally, in 1968, the US military retired the code and made the information public. While code talkers were now allowed to openly discuss their contributions, they weren’t officially recognized for their work until 14 years later, when President Ronald Reagan gave them a Certificate of Recognition. Then in 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a law which awarded each code talker a Congressional Gold Medal—the highest honor awarded to a civilian by the US government. The surviving code talkers received their medals in a formal ceremony held at the White House by President George W. Bush the following year.

These speakers of secret languages had finally gotten the recognition they deserve.

Photo: p. 1: National Archives and Records Administration

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Wage WarriorWhen Lilly Ledbetter found out she was making less money than her male coworkers for the same exact work, she took action. By Siobhán McGowan

Lilly Ledbetter was born in the small town of Possum Trot, Alabama, in a house with no running water or electricity. Ledbetter was determined to change her circumstances by working her way out of poverty—and that’s exactly what she did. By

Thanks to a lawsuit filed by Lilly Ledbetter, American women can at anytime challenge an employer that pays them less money than their male counterparts.

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1979, when she was 40, married, and the mother of two young children, she’d become one of the first women hired as a shift manager at a major tire factory in Gadsden, Alabama. At the time, few women were represented in the company’s management, but Ledbetter persevered, gradually moving up the ranks over two decades.

Ledbetter was satisfied with her progress—until, that is—one ordinary day in 1998, when she went to check her work mail and discovered an anonymous note amidst the papers and envelopes in her mailbox. On the note was written Ledbetter’s name and the salary she earned: $3,727 a month. Listed underneath, were the names of three male coworkers who had the same job title as Ledbetter, and their salaries, which ranged from $4,286 to $5,236 a month. The men, she was stunned to discover, were making 15 to 40 percent more money than she was.

“Those numbers said loud and clear that it didn’t matter how hard I’d worked, how much I’d wanted to succeed and do the right thing,” Ledbetter wrote in her autobiography Grace and Grit. “I’d been born the wrong sex, and that was that.”

Fighting for Fairness Unfair? Absolutely. Ledbetter was furious. On her next day off, she filed a complaint with the

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a US government agency that enforces laws against discrimination. Eventually, her case against the company went to trial and she won: the jury awarded Ledbetter the money her male colleagues had been making, plus damages amounting to more than $3 million. But the tire company appealed the court’s ruling, and the verdict was reversed.

Still, one failed lawsuit wasn’t enough to keep Ledbetter down. Over the next 10 years, she kept on fighting, all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. There, four court justices voted in favor of Ledbetter, while five voted against her. Ledbetter lost again!—this time on a legal technicality.

According to the court, Ledbetter would have had to have filed her anti-discrimination lawsuit within 180 days of the very first unequal paycheck issued by her company. However, Ledbetter didn’t become aware of the salary discrepancy until many years after the fact. The company had made sure of it: when Ledbetter was hired back in the 1970s, the company had her sign a contract that barred coworkers from discussing pay rates—a common corporate practice. So, had she not received that anonymous note years later Ledbetter might never have known.

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After the ruling, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took the rare step of voicing her disapproval from the bench. She urged Congress to correct matters. “In our view, the court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the . . . way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination,” Justice Ginsburg stated.

Victory at Last! Eventually Congress did act. In 2009, the first law Barack Obama signed as president was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. Under this law, each time a paycheck that discriminates against a person based on gender, race, religion, age, national origin, or disability is issued by an employer, the 180-day limit to file a claim is reset. That means that an employee has the right to challenge the discrimination from the moment she or he finds out about it, even if it’s been going on for a long time.

As Obama signed the law, he made reference to his own daughters and how they deserved equal compensation in the workplace. “The notion that somehow we would be keeping my daughters . . .

Lilly Ledbetter (left) was present when President Barack Obama signed the anti-discrimination law named in her honor.

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or any of your daughters, out of opportunity, not allowing them to thrive in every field, not letting them fully participate in every human endeavor— that’s counterproductive,” he stated. “That’s not how we’re going to build a great future for our country.”

Continuing the Fight Ledbetter never did receive a penny of compensation from her company. The law named after her couldn’t restore all the earnings she was denied. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women still earn about 78 cents to a man’s dollar; for black women, it goes down to 64 cents; for Latinas, 56 cents.

Still, Ledbetter takes pride in knowing that she helped advance the cause for future generations of girls. “There will be a far richer reward if we secure fair pay for our children and grandchildren,” she said during a speech in 2008, “so that no one will ever again experience the discrimination that I did. Equal pay for equal work is a fundamental American principle.”

In the 21st century that’s still not the reality. But it’s inarguably the truth.

Photos: p. 1: © Jack Hohman/UPI/Newscom; p. 4tr: © Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Alamy Stock Photo

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A security officer examines elephant tusks that were brought into the United States illegally.

Wildlife DetectiveA scientist cracks cases of wildlife crime.By Jacqueline Adams

At a New York City airport, a government officer has just seized handbags and shoes made from reptile skins. The officer believes the skins came from a caiman, a small reptile similar to a crocodile. Caimans are threatened animals, which means that they may become endangered—or very rare—in the near future. To combat this problem, the United

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States has passed laws to prohibit people from bringing products made from threatened animals into the country without a permit.

The officer who has seized the products needs to confirm that they are made from caiman skins before he can make an arrest. How can he find out for sure? He needs a wildlife expert to analyze the evidence, so he contacts George Amato.

A Wildlife Detective to the RescueGeorge Amato is a scientist who studies threatened and endangered animals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Sometimes, government officers call Amato to help solve a case. That’s when Amato’s lab becomes a crime-fighting forensics lab!

To get to the bottom of this particular case, Amato needs to analyze the animal’s deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. DNA is a chemical code that contains information about an animal, such as skin color, body length, and type of claws. Every animal has a unique DNA. If Amato can decode an animal’s DNA, he can tell what species it belongs to.

Immediately, Amato gets to work. He examines the bags and shoes suspected of being illegal and obtains a DNA sample from the skins. Then he

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enters this information into a computer database, which contains DNA samples of different animal species. He finds a perfect match— the skin comes from South America’s Yacare caiman, a threatened species! Thanks to Amato’s detective work, the person who brought those products into the country is arrested.

Rewarding WorkThis isn’t the first time Amato has cracked such a case. Throughout his career, he has identified illegal products made from sealskins, shark fins, and whale and monkey meat. When those results come in, Amato is sad to learn that a rare animal has been killed. “On the other hand,” he says, “it is rewarding to play a role in closing down that illegal activity.”

Photos: p. 1: © Rungro Yongrit/EPA/Alamy Stock Photo; p. 3tr: © Denis Finnin/American Museum of Natural History, all rights reserved

George Amato analyzes the DNA of an exotic animal for the police.

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Women Get the Vote: A Look BackFor more than a century, women fought for the right to vote.

By Sam Roberts

In 1776, the 13 original colonies of the United States declared their freedom from Great Britain and decided to become an independent nation. They announced this decision in a document called the Declaration of Independence, which also outlined the foundations and principles on which their new country was founded. It declared that “all men are created equal”—but it said nothing about women.

From 1848–1919, many women staged protests and marches to demand the right to vote.

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When a woman named Abigail Adams heard the news, she was extremely disappointed. Her husband, John Adams, a founding father, and later a president of the United States of America, had helped write the Declaration of Independence. While the writing was in progress, Abigail said to him: “Remember the ladies and be . . . generous and favorable to them.” Otherwise, she warned, “we women are determined to stir up a rebellion.”

Unfortunately, women did not receive equal rights in 1776, and as Abigail predicted, a rebellion did build over the next century. American women demanded the same liberties given to men—particularly the right to vote. This became known as the women’s suffrage movement.

Building a MovementStarting the women’s suffrage movement had its challenges. At the time, many people felt that only men should get involved with government—mainly because they believed that men were superior to and more capable of making political decisions than women. Most people did not take women seriously.

However, in July 1848, social activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton decided to do something about

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Elizabeth Stanton (left) inspired many women to fight for equality, including fellow suffragette Susan B. Anthony (right).

this when she helped organize the first meeting for women’s rights. During the meeting, she presented a document called the Declaration of Sentiments, which demanded equal rights for women and attacked lawmakers past and present for the current state of affairs. “We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men and women are created equal,” it boldly declared. “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries . . . on the part of man toward woman.”

Stanton’s document had a rousing effect—100 women and men signed it that day and took up the suffrage cause.

In the years following the successful meeting, suffragists held demonstrations, participated in marches, and made speeches. They pushed lawmakers to change the Constitution to include voting rights for women. Lawmakers had passed amendments to the Constitution before, so suffragists

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knew their demand was realistic. They were determined to pursue equality between the genders.

Changing the LawBy 1900, suffragists had won voting rights in four states. The victory was partly the result of changing attitudes in the United States. Around this time, more women were going to college and getting jobs, and because more women were becoming active outside of their homes, the country began to embrace the idea of votes for women. The suffrage movement gained traction, and Americans began to support the cause.

In 1918, lawmakers responded to pressure from suffragists. They proposed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which stated, “The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied . . . on account of sex.” Within a little more than a year, 35 states had voted in favor of the amendment, but 36 states were needed in order to pass the amendment and make it a law.

Finally, the state of Tennessee made the difference. At first, lawmakers in the state were split—one-half voted in favor of the amendment, and the other half voted against it. But then a young lawmaker named Harry T. Burn, who had been part of the opposition, decided to switch sides. Burn’s sudden change of heart was prompted by a

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letter he received from his mother urging him to vote in favor of the amendment, so on the third vote, he did just that!

The 19th Amendment became law in August of 1920. Women’s long, hard-fought battle to get the vote had finally been won.

Photos: p. 1: Library of Congress; p. 3tr: Library of Congress

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Kristen Griest (shown here) and Shaye Haver trained alongside men in the US Army’s Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Women in CombatMeet the first female soldiers to graduate from the military’s most elite combat program.By Siobhán McGowan

The debate over whether or not women should participate in combat has waged for decades, but Shaye Haver and Kristen Griest leave no doubt as to which side they’re fighting for. In August 2015, First Lieutenant Haver, an Apache helicopter pilot,

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and Captain Griest, a military police platoon leader, became the first women ever to graduate from one of the US military’s premier courses: the Army’s Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Test of Strength Meeting the same standards as 94 male classmates, Haver and Griest each completed three phases of punishing exercises that test endurance and sheer brute strength. They did all the same pull-ups, push-ups—and 12-mile marches over mountains while hauling heavy combat gear—as the men in their group.

The physical challenges were no easy feat. The participants struggled with fatigue, hunger, and hard conditions during the course. Haver even admits that she considered quitting. “It was grueling,” she said. “But the ability to look around to my peers, and to see that they were just as bad as I was, kept me going.”

“I definitely had some low points, particularly in the swamps in Florida,” adds Griest. “But I never actually thought anything was going to be too difficult that it was worth leaving the course.”

Limits Still Exist Graduates of the course typically go on to participate in the Ranger Regiment—a combat force

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that consists of elite soldiers who are specially trained to withstand the toughest rigors of battle. But that doesn’t hold true for the course’s female graduates.

Although Griest and Haver are allowed to wear the prestigious black-and-gold Ranger tab on their uniform, they are not yet allowed to join the elite fighting Rangers unit itself. The limits are largely imposed by skeptics who argue that due to basic biology, men will always be physically superior to even the most highly skilled women soldiers.

However, Haver’s and Griest’s success may help change minds in the United States Department of Defense. “Each Ranger School graduate has shown the physical and mental toughness to successfully lead organizations at any level,” Army Secretary John McHugh said in a statement. “This course has proven that every soldier, regardless of gender, can achieve his or her full potential. We owe these soldiers the opportunity to serve successfully in any position where they are qualified and capable.”

Both women successfully completed the program and received Ranger tabs during the graduation ceremony.

Photos: p. 1: Spc. Nikayla Shodeen/US Army; p. 3tr: Staff Sgt. Steve Cortez/US Army