Catching food security in a dipnet

Creating an indoor aquaculture operation in an old brewery is, oddly enough, using surprisingly little water.

Chicago's progress in lowering the dropout rate is in part because of a network of charter schools around the city that provide small, alternative programs that specialize in serving students who have dropped out or are considering dropping out of school. "It's like a second home for me," said one student about her experience in such a program at CCA Academy. Teachers with these programs offer understanding and a high level of support and encourage their students to grow.

Farmers in Vietnam face rising sea levels but rejected the city's water engineering projects. They prefer gradual measures to cope with climate change so scientists have allowed the farmers to steer the conversation.

Louisiana and Vietnam both need affordable solutions to rising sea levels. Leaders from Vietnam visited Louisiana to compare ideas.

The World Conservation Union estimates that 40 percent of the more than 40,000 species it tracks on its Red List are close to extinction and this problem requires humans to change their behavior to fix it. Rare’s the Pride Campaign uses social marketing to attract attention and communicate the conservation message between local communities and government entities. The Pride Campaign has been replicated around the world for different conservation efforts to protect biodiversity.

Farmland is expensive and scarce in urban areas. In Boston Higher Ground Farm uses green roofs to grow its produce and Grove Lab has designed a cabinet for people to grow their vegetables indoors.

In just the next couple of decades, the World Bank says, farmers across Africa could lose more than half their cropland to drought and heat - the issue is considered so pressing that, a few years ago, Malawi's Department of Meteorological Services added "Climate Change" to its name. A new aid group group now works with farmers in more than 60 villages — with plans to expand — helping them become more resilient to a changing climate.

New water management technology implemented along the Columbia has significantly helped the fish population - specifically salmon - return to healthy numbers and has restored much of the community and industry that revolves around the river, including for native peoples.

Clean water and healthy ecosystems are becoming increasingly difficult to come by. With floating islands and other inventions, eco-entrepreneur Bruce Kania thinks that biomimicry - such as reconstructing wetlands and growing biofilms - can tackle the toughest of water problems.

In many parts of the world, not owning one's own land is more directly correlated to poverty than other factors such as illiteracy, but land reform is controversial, difficult, and expensive. A new program called Landesa is having success in India through a non-confiscatory model that gives families tennis-court size plots.