- December 13, 2011 • 8:00 am PST
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If there's one word people will use to describe 2011 to their grandchildren, that word will be "upheaval." Since almost the first day of this year, protests of all kinds have swept across the world, uniting nations, toppling dictators, and occupying public areas from Los Angeles to Rome. Putting together a roundup of the most important moments from all this political turmoil was not easy—weren't they all important?—but it's good to at least try and remember the mile-markers. The better to guide 2012's uprisings.

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A Pickup Truck Grows an Educational Mini-Farm
2
Could Charging People for Uneaten Food in Restaurants Help Us Stop Wasting It?
3
What Drivers Really Think About Bikers: The History and Psychology of Sharing the Road
4
Should Teachers View Their Students as Customers?
5
New Research Says Parenting Makes You Happy—If You're a Dad
today's top stories from our friends at pitchfork

Ten food stories you should read this year (or next year).

It was a record year for solar power, but we also had the Deepwater Horizon spill. A look back at the major events in energy in 2010.

From foraging to First Lady's anti-obesity campaign, the year in good eating, drinking, and thinking.
In the wake of this weekend's news about incredibly large bonuses the AIG (via your tax dollars) is paying to the very division within the company...

More than 100,000 barefoot Buddhist monks have taken to the street in Burma.They're marching from the Shwedagon Pagoda to the country's largest...

Two Libyan Air Force pilots today fled to Malta after refusing to follow orders to bomb their countrymen.

Abby Falik wants a year abroad between high school and college to be as mainstream a pursuit as Teach for America.

Reports coming out of Bahrain say that police shot into a crowd of sleeping protesters early Thursday morning. One person is dead.

The protesters are motivated by a general sense of injustice, not specific demands.

From this removed vantage point, you can see the tide turn in Egypt before your very eyes. It's unbelievable.

Yesterday London's stately Tate Britain got an unexpected new installation.

I was about to say, “I'll see you soon,” but I had no idea if that was true. Instead, I just repeated, “I'll see you.”

Banned books return to Tunisia and Egypt, signifying an ease on censorship in the newly dictatorless countries.

The government is cracking down hard in the wake of the Arab uprisings.
From Boing Boing comes this video, by Al Jazeera, which offers one look at a legal battle between a resident of the polluted Niger Delta and...

Almost every major urban school districts saw leadership shakeups this year. Here are some of the biggest.
Samy is in Bangkok—over 100 miles away from the one place he’s ever legally allowed to be. After Google Latitudes abruptly alerted me to the...

The state that brought you Lauren Conrad, the Black Eyed Peas, and gangster rap goes hard with education reform, too.
One day after they forced their president out of office through ceaseless protests, Egypt's citizens united today to repair what they'd damaged.

With no internet service, protesters are getting messages of determination and desperation out to the world through voice to tweet tech. Listen here.