The third annual "Earth Hour" took place this year on March 29th. The first Earth Hour took place in Sydney, Australia in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned off their lights for one hour to raise awareness of climate change and greenhouse emissions. In 2008, the numbers rose as 50 million people turned off their lights worldwide, and in 2009 hundreds of millions of people "turned out the lights" for one hour starting at 8:30 PM. One thousand cities in over eighty countries participated in the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored 2009 Earth Hour by dimming nonessential lights between 8:30 and 9:30 PM in each respective time zone.
Click on the images in this very cool Boston.com Earth Hour article to see photographs of buildings and landmarks from major cities around the world before and then during Earth Hour.
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In case you missed it, there are a couple of interesting articles in yesterday's and today's editions of The Guardian about the ten architects that were selected last year by French president Nicolas Sarkozy to present their visions for reshaping Paris, the most visited city in the world, and its neglected and isolated outskirts into a more well connected and much greener metropolis for the 21st century.
Earlier this week, the ten chosen architects previewed their visions for the future of "Le Grand Paris" in 30-minute presentations. Images from each of the presentations are available on the French daily's Le Figaro.
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Google is encouraging K-12
students to think big with their "What I Wish for the World" Doodle 4
Google program in which students can submit their designs for Google's
Home Page logo. School teachers and other school employees must
register by March 17th for the
program.Design entries are due by March 31st. Parents or students who
are interested should contact their teacher or other school official to
register for them.
There
will be four different brackets (by age group) and ten different
judging regions (by states). Students who attend private schools or who
are home schooled are also eligible to participate.
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