#freethink

This dad couldn’t find an amusement park that worked for his daughter with special needs - so he built one.

Morgan’s Wonderland in San Antonio, Texas isn’t your typical amusement park. It’s the first “ultra-accessible” theme park designed from the ground up with inclusivity and accessibility in mind. It came about when Gordon Hartman, a San Antonio business owner, found that typical amusement parks like Six Flags were overwhelming for Morgan, his daughter with special needs. He decided to build not just a theme park for special needs kids, but one that absolutely everyone could enjoy - whether or not they had disabilities. Now, it’s fulfilling the summer dreams of thousands of Texas kids - and even providing many special needs children with their first jobs. It isn’t just inclusive with regard to special needs; it also has special admission rates to make sure it is affordable for everyone.

Since Morgan’s Wonderland opened in 2010, its inspiring and heartwarming story has been featured in Inside Edition and by other TV networks and it’s become sponsored by Toyota. We spoke to Gordon Hartman and toured the park to look at the many innovative and accessible features that it has pioneered. Could it help people across the world come up with new ideas for special needs activities?

Originally uploaded onto YouTube on September 6th, 2019

Clayton fostered his love for numbers by playing poker - a lot of poker. Now, he’s using that mentality to launch a vertical farm company that he believes can “replace the produce aisle.”

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“We think everyone deserves access to reliable local food year-round,” says Nebullam co-founder Clayton Mooney. “Our vision is to replace the produce aisle.”

When Mooney and Danen Pool founded indoor farming company Nebullam in 2017, they knew that growing crops indoors would be the future of farming. At the time, however, indoor farming technology was far from futuristic. “We saw that indoor farming was very antiquated,” said Mooney.

So, Nebullam set out to optimize the future of farming. The company's initial goal was to develop and sell technology to up-and-coming indoor farming companies, including software that helps analyze and optimize the production process, and equipment that’s more mobile so farmers can position crops where indoor conditions are ideal.

What if an entire city decided to go electric? This one is. Step into Oslo, Norway.

What if an entire city decided to go electric? Imagine a place where trams glide silently through the streets, buses hum along emitting no fumes, and even the ferries that cross the waters are powered solely by electricity.

Welcome to Oslo, Norway, where electrification has become a way of life. Oslo is on a mission to achieve a nearly 100% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2009 levels. They're electrifying everything from construction sites to scooters, with a focus on the construction and transportation sectors, which contribute the most to emissions. Electric cars have become the norm, thanks to government policies that incentivize their adoption. Oslo's ferries are now the world's first all-electric passenger ferries.

Meet the techno-optimists saving rainforests – and making their solution open source.

On its own, the mighty Amazon jungle could capture around 600 million tons of CO2 per year, says Tasso Azevedo, one of Brazil’s leading environmental advocates. But human activity threatens to destroy not only the Amazon, but a variety of unique ecosystems, leaving in their place farms, gold mines and pasture lands.

All of this is happening as the world faces a changing climate — the warmer and drier weather raising fire risks and making ecosystems less resilient.

But a coalition of NGOs, universities, and tech companies, are harnessing technology to help track land use across the vastness and diversity of Brazil. The collaborative project, called MapBiomas, uses satellite imagery to track and report human changes to ecosystems. With all of its data available publicly, MapBiomas is fighting not only climate change and environmental destruction, but crime, too.

“We belong here. We always have.” Meet the people behind Pillars, the program investing in the lives and dreams of American Muslims.

Muslims make up one of the most diverse religious communities in America, yet face some of the harshest stereotypes of any religious group. Many of these pervasive false narratives were created and magnified in a post-9/11 landscape.

Founded in 2010, Pillars Fund is working to amplify the leadership, narratives, and talents of Muslims. Pillars has distributed more than $9 million in grants to organizations to push back against harmful stereotypes while spotlighting the positive work being done by Muslim communities.

Pillars Fund and organizations like the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) are working to foster social change, cultivate arts, and deepen community for Muslims all over the U.S.

School wasn’t working for him – so this program fostered his love of gardening and empowered him with tangible professional skills that helped him improve his grades.

Millions of students struggle to stay engaged. While traditional curriculums are often one-size-fits-all, Tulsa Public School district is taking a new approach, equipping students with tools to achieve success in and out of the classroom.

Beyond critical academic foundational skills, this initiative is allowing students to discover their own passions after school hours, which can lead to greater engagement with coursework and grow confidence in social settings.

By helping students find their unique niches, Tulsa Public Schools is empowering them to draw connections from their studies to personal interests, creating better learners.