Last week Greenland experienced the largest ice melt since the advent of precise records and quite possibly in the last 1000 years. Xavier Fettweis, a climate scientist from the University of Liege, reported that “The current melt rate is equivalent to what the model projects for 2070, using the most pessimistic model.”

Meanwhile, all over France temperatures reached record highs—extreme figures that were used to model a worst-case scenario for climate collapse by 2050.

But there was another news story that may have escaped your attention:

An Irish teenager designed a method to extract microplastics from water for the Google Science Fair.

Our world is facing a host of new problems, and we cannot rely on Google to incentivize solutions. We need all students to identify threats to the Common Good and to design solutions.

That’s why we created Expeditionaries: To form social entrepreneurs who will design an optimistic future. In fact, today we are launching an Expedition for students from St. Benedict’s Prep and Benedictine Academy in New Jersey. And registration* is now open for all Expeditions for the 2019-20 school year.

To put a contemporary twist on ancient Chinese wisdom: The best time to solve the problem of Greenland melting and France sweltering was 40 years ago. The second best time is today.

There might not be a third best time if we fail to develop our students into social innovators.

So how are you preparing your students to seek out problems facing our Common Good, give shape to them, and design solutions?

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*Bonus: 10% discount if you sign up before August 31.

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