A Philippine community that once ate giant clams now works to protect them

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.

Illicit activity is rampant in the rundown motel rooms dotting Costa Mesa’s Harbor and Newport boulevards. Officials think they finally have a plan to make some of those motels disappear: Property zoning.

By releasing fish into the Chicago River, the city of Chicago aims to help clean up its ecosystem, as the fish hopefully will eat the river's excess algae.

Overall, Cambodia is a relatively poor country whose residents don't own much. Norwegian hotel owners in the city of Krong Siem Reap urge their Cambodian staff to be more in charge of making their own decisions by making them co-owners of the hotel, an act that forced them to have more confidence and critical thinking skills.

Warming water has led to the collapse of coral reef systems in the western Indian Ocean, essential to fisheries, protecting shorelines, and reducing beach erosion and sea-level rise. Marine scientists from Nature Seychelles, as part of an international project to protect and restore the reefs, are promoting varieties of coral that they have found to be resistant to the rise in temperature.

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.

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.