Category archives for Innovations
Shell’s Eco-marathon Americas Competition
Posted by Teams from 30 universities and 18 high schools from the United States
and Canada – including the first all girls team — met in Houston for
Shell’s Eco-marathon Americas competition on April 16 and 17 to show
that it is possible to create cars that use less fuel. The teams proved
this by slow-speed racing their homemade vehicles.
The all-girls team from Washington’s Granite Falls High School had high hopes for their lime green vehicle, the Iron Maiden, but technical problems denied them their fuel economy goal of 678 miles per gallon (288 kilometers per liter), which would have broken the 26-year-old program’s previous record for diesel vehicles. Instead, they ran at 378 mpg (161 km/l) and received a special award for safety in vehicle design, construction and onsite behavior.
See the entire list of winners.
Look at pictures from the event.
Mark and Suzi Lilly had a big dream–that everyone should have access to fresh, local produce. In 2009, they started Farm to Family, a farmers’ market on wheels that serves people in Central Virginia.Their goal is to connect farms with communities and encourage a diet of fresh products.
Photograph by Mark Lilly
Mark and Suzi drive an old, brightly-painted school bus to areas that don’t have access to fresh food and teach people about the produce and how to cook it.
Photograph by Karima Selehdar
Learn more about Farm to Family.
Grow your own garden.
Most fans wouldn’t notice it, but Super Bowl XLV was played in green stadium. The U.S. National Football League’s newest and largest stadium, Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, showcases a growing trend in sports toward greener arena designs and cleaner energy.
Sports stadiums around the world are making energy-saving improvements by installing solar panels, adding wind turbines, efficient lighting, increasing recycling, and improving water management systems.
For more information, read Kickoff Time for Green Stadiums on National Geographic News.
Photograph by Photograph by David Drapkin, AP
Creative kids are coming up with innovative design solutions to environmental problems around the world. Inhabitat.com recently showcased eight kids who invented some cool new products, from the wall-climbing backpack designed by Hibiki Kono (pictured above) to a water filtration system conceived by Kelydra Welcker.
Read about these young inventors on Inhabitat.com and come up with your own inventions!
http://inhabitat.com/2010/08/04/8-inspiring-green-kids-and-their-eco-innovations/
Photograph by Geoffrey Robinson, Rex USA
Did you know that not all watermelons are sold for food? An incredible one-fifth of watermelons go to waste because they have too many scars or are shaped oddly. Wouldn’t it be great if something could be done with these rejected watermelons?
Wayne Fish, a chemist with the Agricultural Research Service in Lane, Oklahoma, and his team were working on a project using watermelons when they realized that watermelon juice could be used to make ethanol, which can be used as fuel for cars. It doesn’t matter how the watermelons look, because only the juice is used. Could watermelon juice be the fuel for a car you might drive one day?
Read more about this green (or is it red?) fuel on National Geographic News.
Put your own words into a photo of a woman eating watermelon on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph by Gareth Richards, My Shot
