By Maili Pieragostini In 2014, the water of Flint, Michigan, shifted from a basic necessity to a quiet, everyday danger. When the city switched its water source in an effort to save money, the water that flowed into homes wasn’t just discolored…it was dangerous. Lead seeped from aging pipes. Children were breaking out in rashes. Mothers and fathers were losing their hair. For many, bottled water became the new norm – and focus – of daily life, in order to drink, cook, and clean. This was the Flint Water Crisis: a failure of infrastructure, of oversight, and of justice. In the middle of this crisis, one voice broke through – not of a politician, a scientist, or even of a seasoned activist, but of a child determined to be heard. Amariyanna “Mari” Copeny, otherwise known as Little Miss Flint. In 2016, at barely eight years old, Copeny wrote a letter to President Barack Obama. She told him what life in Flint had become for kids like her: what it meant to grow up in a city where ...
by Maili Pieragostini Who was the first to recognize that anthropogenic activity could cause global warming? Many might say Joseph Fourier, who was the first to theorize through mathematical calculations that Earth’s atmosphere insulates the planet. Others might say John Tyndall, the 19th-century physicist whose name became synonymous with the science of heat and gases. But there is another scientist, a woman whose name was nearly lost to history. Eunice Newton Foote, the first to experimentally demonstrate that certain gases trap heat from the sun. Eunice Newton Foote was a scientist, inventor, and early advocate for women’s rights. In 1856, at a time when women were excluded from most scientific institutions, Foote conducted a groundbreaking experiment in her home laboratory. Her goal was simple yet profound: to understand how different gases respond to sunlight. Using glass cylinders, thermometers, and an air pump, Foote tested how gases like carbon dioxide and ordinary a...