Sierra Club announces Best Internship on Earth 2012 edition

by Kraig Becker on

The Sierra Club has begun accepting applications for the 2012 edition of their Best Internship on Earth, opening the program up to students or recent grads between the ages of 18 and 25. Interested applicants should enjoy traveling, have a passion for the outdoors, and a desire to share their experiences with the Club’s active online community.

The person selected for this internship will be named the 2012 Outdoor Youth Ambassador and will spend the summer traveling around the U.S. as part of the Club’s Mission Outdoors program. That particular initiative is designed to engage young people with nature and encourage them to get outdoors and enjoy the world around them. To that end the “intern” will be hiking, paddling, and climbing as part of their job, while also chronicling their experience through videos and blog postings about their adventures.

Interested parties are encouraged to apply online, where they will be asked to submit a 60-90 second video explaining why they are the ideal candidate for the job. The video should demonstrate an enthusiasm for the outdoors and a passion for conservation – although creative video editing won’t hurt the applicant’s cause either.

The intern will be based out of San Francisco for the summer, but because he or she will be traveling frequently – not to mention spending quite a bit of time outdoors – they’ll also receive $2000 worth of gear from The North Face. That gear will be put to good use throughout their tenure with the Sierra Club and is worth earning the internship alone.

Applications are being accepted through 5PM PDT on March 27th. For more details click here.


Video: Holes of Happiness, East London’s pothole gardens

by Elizabeth Seward on

When living in a mostly concrete city, the lack of vegetation can become increasingly troublesome. Thankfully, the issue is addressed in the short documentary, “Holes of Happiness.” While living in NYC over the span of eight years, I began to feel exponentially stir crazy, and I think this was, in large part, due to the stark juxtaposition between New York and where I had grown up. I was raised in the country outside of a small Appalachian town in Ohio on West Virginia‘s border. Everything was green and the biggest expanse of concrete was the shopping mall 30 minutes away. My experience aids me in understanding why some residents of East London have taken it upon themselves to engage in a bit of guerrilla warfare, using gardening as ammunition. Beautiful flowers and other plants are now popping up in unsuspecting places, even potholes. The end result seems to be, simply, a more beautiful, green city.

Phone booth libraries in New York City

by Elizabeth Seward on

New York City is a petri dish wherein cool, innovative things grow–like phone booth libraries. John Locke, an architect in NYC, recently took on a literary repurposing project. Phone booths, which still ornament NYC streets, have become nostalgic landmarks in the city. More people than ever now have cell phones and, if I had to guess, fewer people than ever carry spare change in their pockets (Dollars? Quarters? If I ever need to use a pay phone, let’s hope it takes my card). While the phone booths throughout NYC are still useful (a shelter during inclement weather, a place to make out), Locke’s newest project has turned some phone booths into mini-libraries, thus making the phone booths exponentially more useful than before. Locke has outfitted these phone booth libraries with fitted shelves. Pedestrians are invited to take, borrow, or exchange books from the shelves within these booths. Which other commonly found, stationary objects do you think will be repurposed in the years to come? Will trash cans be our new food pantry drop-off bins? Will bus stops one day be on-the-go charging stations?

Washington, D.C. breaks ground today for brand new National Museum of African American History and Culture

by Jessica Festa on

This morning, Washington, D.C. held a groundbreaking ceremony for their brand new National Museum of African American History and Culture that will be the Smithsonian Institution’s 19th museum. The event, attended by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, marked Black History Month by celebrating a new kind of history museum that looks to educate people through a candid representation of African American life, art and culture.

Says Museum Director Lonnie Bunch, “What this museum can do is if we tell the unvarnished truth in a way that’s engaging and not preachy, what I think will happen is that by illuminating all the dark corners of the American experience, we will help people find reconciliation and healing.”

While the project won’t be completed until 2015, you can still visit the National Museum’s current gallery at the Smithsonian (shown above). Until October 14, 2012, visitors can view the exhibition, “Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty.” The showcase tells the story of President Thomas Jefferson and his conflicting roles of being a slave owner and an anti-slavery advocate. It’s a good example of the museum telling the kinds of stories that are often seen as taboo, but are important to get out to the public.

The seven-level museum will feature architecture and decor inspired by African culture and will eventually feature exhibits on military history, sports, pop culture and music, including items like Louis Armstrong’s trumpet, a Jim Crow-era segregated railroad car, and much more. So far, $100 million has been raised in private funds, and the museum will now begin attempts to raise public funds in order to meet their $250 million goal.

For more information on the National Museum of African American History and Culture, click here.

Video of the day: skateboarding in South Asia

by Elizabeth Seward on

Visualtraveling – ‘Holy Cow’ from Patrik Wallner on Vimeo.

Visualtraveling created this ten minute film piece titled ‘Holy Cow’ with footage from travels centered around skateboarding in South Asia. The documented journey took place over the course of a month. This video features, primarily, awesome shots of skateboarders boarding in cool places, doing neat things with their skateboards–the kinds of things I most certainly do not know how to do. The video also features non-skateboarding things. Stunning landscape shots, interesting architecture, bright colors, unique cars and other vehicles, and crowds of spectators complete this ‘skateboarding’ video which, like so many skateboarding videos, is equally functional as a travel video.