It’s a thin hook, but I’ll use it anyway for the entry to this post.
The funniest joke was crowned at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. From the wit of Stewart Francis came this chestnut…
You know who really gives kids a bad name? Posh & Becks.
rimshot
Part of this joke plays on the canard that the youth of today have a bad reputation. Regardless of the generation, the elders always wonder where they went wrong with the kids.
Today’s post turns that thought on its head as I have three stories about kids today.
Jack Andraka, 15, wins the top prize at Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair (including $75,000). He created a method of testing blood or urine to identify diseases such as early-stage pancreatic cancer. His method is considerably cheaper and more effective than current testing procedures. Read more about Andraka here and here.
Taylor Wilson, at the age of 14, built a device that achieved nuclear fusion. Beat that, Paul Stephens. Oh, yeah, and he also gave a talk at TED.
Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva, both 16, were the North American winners for the inaugural United Nations International Forest Heroes Award. They were honored by the UN because this pair started a campaign to have the Girl Scouts of America change the recipe for their cookies. Tontishen and Vorva were doing a project on orangutans and they saw that the animal’s habitat was in danger due to deforestation. Forests where the orangutans lived were being cut down for the farming of palm oil, which was an ingredient in Girl Scout cookies. Read more about this pair here and here.
I feel better about the future. You?
Form Your Troika 