Articles+&+Ideas

=NPR: Dallas School Bus Runs On Vegetable Oil= by BJ Austin Listen Now [1 min 29 sec] add to playlist

[|Morning Edition], April 8, 2009 · In Texas, the Dallas County school district has become one of the first in the country to figure out how to run a school bus on vegetable oil. The district hopes to convert all of its buses to this environmentally-friendly fuel.

Ideas-- -tamagotchi but from plants -lit on how kids understand things they can't see. have one character or the animal be the ultimate truth -events listings page on our site -mobile games/apps - first ones have the potential to be very popular

Here are some articles that I have found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playground#Natural_playground

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/health/24well.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Fourth%20R&st=cse (this is less about environment, and more about the desperation of public health officials everywhere to get children to MOVE!)

http://www.eere.energy.gov/kids/renergy.html - here is where I originally got my idea for our superheroes!

and here are some general plot/script ideas I can come up with thus far:

one idea I came up with (in the shower, of all places to waste water...) is to gather children from different areas of the US, as we had determined earlier, and to send them possibly to places outside the US... I'm not sure if this is taking on too much... but just a thought...

Name: "Source Force" - they could turn into the source force when they go to this "land down under" ~

Speaking of land down under... we should also pick a killer theme song, something recognizable but that hasn't been played to death... hmm

What do you think of being able to... (look up pics? order ideas? pick three favorites)
 * Using sound horns to listen to anything in the world
 * Using distorted mirrors to see into the future
 * Using distorted mirrors to see see another part of the world
 * Being able to jump through the distorted mirrors into those scenes
 * A water fountain that sometimes spits out tomato juice, sometimes spits out broccoli juice, and sometimes spits out carrot juice
 * Using the slide to travel to any location in the world
 * See-saw that launches something to exactly what it needs to know
 * A merry-go-round that catapults into the atmosphere above (go through smog, light pollution, acid rain, etc)

"Kids embrace new technologies and media platforms seamlessly, and there often is really good and developmentally appropriate content for them on those platforms. Developers and producers of children's media have to continue to challenge themselves to provide the highest quality content and entertainment for our children. Of course, I think kids should also be playing with each other and the adults who care for them, and with paper and crayons, and with pots and wooden spoons, and with books that they hold in their hands and music they hear in the room. What we're seeing is parents, educators, and society continuing to struggle to figure out what exactly constitutes a healthy, balanced media diet of low-tech, high-tech, and new media material" - - **Iris Sroka, PhD **  //Principal // Paradigm Research & Consulting 