Author: TheConversation

Closure of school cafeterias due to coronavirus puts poorest children at risk of missing nutritious meals

By Thurston Domina, Professor, Educational Policy and Organizational Leadership, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Schools aren’t only places where kids learn. They are also places where kids eat. Thanks to the National School Lunch Program, 30 million U.S. children – some 60% of all school-aged kids – regularly eat some combination of breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks at school. Federal subsidies ensure that school meals are affordable for all children to stave off hunger and malnutrition. But what is happening to meals provided by the nation’s largest child nutrition program as public schools shut their doors to...

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Stop hoarding the Charmin: Why people are panic buying toilet paper when there is an abundant supply

By Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior Lecturer, Questrom School of Business, Boston University The other day I went into Costco to buy some toilet paper. It came as a small shock when I could not find a single roll. The new coronavirus is inspiring panic buying of a variety of household products such as toilet paper in cities across the U.S. and world. While it makes sense to me that masks and hand sanitizer would be in short supply because of the outbreak, I wondered why people would be hoarding toilet paper – a product that is widely produced and...

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Social Distancing: Think of it as “Elbow Room” for your health in the age of contagious pathogens

By Thomas Perls, Professor of Medicine, Boston University As the coronavirus spreads into more and more communities, public health officials are placing responsibility on individuals to help slow the pandemic. Social distancing is the way to do it. What is social distancing? Social distancing is a tool public health officials recommend to slow the spread of a disease that is being passed from person to person. Simply put, it means that people stay far enough away from each other so that the coronavirus – or any pathogen – cannot spread from one person to another. The Centers for Disease...

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Mistrust of Government: Why so many Americans refuse to answer or participate in the census

By Jessica Stanford, Demographic Analyst, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill More than 4 million Americans may not be represented in the upcoming 2020 census. This is a problem, as the once-every-10-year census affects everything from federal funding to political representation to research projects that rely on accurate census data, like the ones my colleagues and I conduct at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The 2020 census is fraught with uncertainty for a variety of reasons, including a lack of money, a growing distrust in government and the months of debate over the now-dropped citizenship...

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Barriers that target working people and minority voters are a modern poll tax paid in time

By Joshua F.J. Inwood, Associate Professor of Geography Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Pennsylvania State University; and Derek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee Delays and long lines at polling places during recent presidential primary elections represent the latest version of decades-long policies that have sought to reduce the political power of African Americans in the United States. Following the Civil War and the extension of the vote to African Americans, state governments worked to block black people, as well as poor whites, from voting. One way they tried to accomplish this goal was...

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How Ansel Adams used his creativity to harness the communicative power of photography

By Rebecca Senf, Chief Curator, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona The bold style of black-and-white landscapes from the American wilderness are so iconic that most people know an Ansel Adams photograph when they see it. Yet they may be surprised to learn that Adams did not learn his craft by attending an elite art institution or by apprenticing with a master photographer. My new book, Making a Photographer: The Early Work of Ansel Adams, charts the early years of Adams, demonstrating how this self-taught expert learned from experience to identify his audience, hone his message and imbue...

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