The North Star Montessori Academy in Marquette Township, Michigan is hoping to expand their Montessori method into their middle and high school.

According to Upper Michigan Source, the school’s Montessori method goes up to grade 6, but the academy is hoping to expand the program to their middle school and high school within the next few years. The Montessori approach provides students with a broken down daily schedule of three-hour un-interrupted work cycles where students are able to choose what they want to do and what they want to learn.

Autumn Bates, the first through third grade teacher, spoke with Upper Michigan Source about the approach and how teachers are able to work with their students who choose their own curriculum.

“The teachers then go to each individual student or students at the same pace and do our individual lessons with them,” Bates said. “We literally go from child to child to child, teaching.”

Children can benefit from this approach as they’re able to fully grasp a specific concept before moving on to the next. Not everyone in the classroom will be learning the exact same thing at the exact same time. There are no desks in the classroom and no assigned seating, so the children feel comfortable in this space. Students are encouraged to challenge and motivate themselves without the use of a laid out plan.

This year, the North Star Montessori Academy has seen its largest enrollment in quite some time. They have an open house planned to celebrate their success and encourage students and parents to join the community.

The expansion of the Montessori method into the middle school and high school will allow older children to keep up with their internal discipline and to receive personalized attention if they’re struggling with more difficult topics. As children get older, the school topics get tougher, and many people in a public school setting tend to fall back because of this.

The North Star Montessori Academy is just one of the over 8,000 Montessori schools currently in the United States.

The Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, gave a heartwarming speech for his final State of the State address in late January of this year. He claims that he worked hard during his time in office, and it has shown. He states that Michigan is in a much better place than it was when he took office in 2010, despite its ups and downs.

Of those things that he claims have improved for the state of Michigan during his time in office, some include rural broadband access, recycling, Asian carp in the Great Lakes, water infrastructure, and the replacement of money. Recycling holds some of the biggest importance for environmental improvement for Michigan.

Currently, Michigan’s bottle deposit law is over 42 years old. Residents of Michigan can get 10 cents back per bottle when they return empty soft drink, beer, wine bottles, or carbonated water containers to their local grocery store. The people of Michigan are very good at recycling, seeing as 97% of those containers have been returned for the refund of a dime. Although this seems like a great feat, not all beverage containers have been eligible for the return deposit in the current bill.

In late January, a new bill was proposed to change the current bottle deposit laws. The new law would include water and juice bottles and cans to the list of containers that consumers can receive a bottle deposit for. Considering that 2.5 million plastic bottles are used in America every hour, this would be a huge step up.

This bill came right around the same time that Governor Snyder stated that he wanted to improve recycling efforts throughout the state. Snyder’s plans to improve recycling included promises of recycling bins in all state facilities, increasing educational efforts to encourage recycling throughout the state, and reforming the state’s solid-waste laws to slow the development of landfills in the state.

Michigan is taking its role to protect the environment very seriously, and it is surprising to see. Will other states see the example and follow suit?

Detroit may be well-known for its abandoned homes and vacant lots, but the city may be soon known for something a bit sweeter and buzzier: beekeeping.

Detroit Hives, a nonprofit started last year by Timothy Paule and Nicole Lindsay, is buying up vacant properties and transforming them into urban bee farms. They started their venture after realizing they could combine the medicinal power of honey and improve local neighborhoods at once.

As Paule told the Huffington Post: “These properties are left abandoned and serve as a dumping ground in most cases. The area can be a breeding ground for environmental hazards, which creates a stigma around the city.”

The pair bought their first vacant piece of land with help from Detroit Land Bank Authority, which helps to redevelop abandoned properties in the city. According to the organization’s director of inventory, the authority works with nonprofits and faith-based organizations to bring the groups’ visions to life and improve Detroit one lot at a time.

In addition to raising honeybees and selling their honey, Detroit Hives hosts farm tours to the public and travels to Detroit schools to speak with young students. Improving public perception of bees has been an interesting challenge, according to Paule.

“It was a little hard at first because most high-schoolers are afraid of bees or they really don’t care,” Paule explained to the Huffington Post. “So I had to find a unique way to introduce bees to them. One thing they found intriguing is how each honeybee had a unique job.”

Currently, Detroit Hives owns just the one farm, but they want to expand this year. They rely on grants, donations, and crowdfunding to serve the community. Approximately 17% of crowdfunding donations are made on mobile devices — which seems appropriate for this venture, given the buzzing nature of both bees and phones set to vibrate mode. No matter how they receive the support, the pair is incredibly grateful that they can give back to the community.

Bees are basically the masters of giving back. They are responsible for pollinating more than $15 million a year in crops throughout the United States. That means that most of the food we consume relies on bees in one way or another. But their plight has become serious, and it’s efforts like these that might revitalize the population.

However, according to research conducted in the U.K., the rise in urban beekeeping may not be entirely good news. Cambridge University claims that the rise in amateur beekeepers is actually leading to a population decline in wild bees. They’ve evidently found it hard to gather enough nectar and pollen to sustain their colonies. A study co-author even ventured to say that the prevalent “save the honeybee” campaigns end up harming wildlife. But the British Beekeepers Association has spoken out against this claim, noting the point of view as “unhelpful” and that it wrongly places the blame on honeybees (and their keepers).

In the U.S., and in Detroit specifically, it seems like more people are happy to see an increase in these honey-making insects. Not only do local vendors get the chance to use the honey in their wares, like sauces and handcrafted beers, but community members are thrilled to see a bee farm where an informal dump once stood. Viagra https://tiaca.org/buy-viagra-sildenafil-online-20-mg/ allows many men with erectile dysfunction to get a natural response to sexual arousal. Considering that plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to degrade in a conventional landfill, Detroit Hives seem to be improving the look of the neighborhood and the health of the environment overall.

It’s no wonder that the Detroit Hives team has chosen “Work Hard, Stay Bumble” as their tagline. As Paule explained to HuffPost: “We’re hustlers, innovators and thinkers. Bees work really hard, and they’re humble. In Detroit, you have to work hard and be humble. It’ll take you far.”

Long-term care insurance rates are seeing steep increases, causing many seniors and their families financial distress. Because of the high costs of long-term assisted living, one-fifth of Americans over age 65 owns one of these insurance policies. That means many individuals are being blindsided by premium spikes, something Sally Wylie, a 67-year-old retired learning specialist, is all too familiar with.

“Never in our wildest imagination did we consider that the company would double the premium,” Wall Street Journal reports Wylie saying.

Long-term care insurance covers more than 7 million Americans and can help mitigate the costs associated with nursing homes, memory care, and personal aid services for senior citizens.

A 2013 State of Aging and Health in America report showed that two-thirds of all health care costs went toward treating chronic illnesses, while a shocking 95% of senior health care costs were for chronic conditions.

Continuing care for chronic conditions like dementia and ALS is a basic need for a large portion of elderly individuals. It seems only natural, then, that the promise of financial assistance would attract some people who are unsure about their payment strategy for this much-needed care.

Today, more than 5 million people are currently struggling with Alzheimer’s in America alone. Long-term care for these individuals is often necessary.

So why are long-term insurance policies becoming more expensive?

Forbes reports that long-term insurance rates are increasing due to miscalculated rates. Regardless of the reason, the premium spikes are putting long-term care out of reach for many families.

In 2016, the total cost of caring for Alzheimer’s patients reached $236 billion in the United States. These costs do not even include other assisted living patients.

Also not included in these statistics is the amount of time unpaid caregivers spend caring for Alzheimer’s patients.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, “15.9 million family and friends provided 18.2 billion hours of unpaid assistance to those with Alzheimer’s and other dementias.”

This illness, alongside many other long-term care needs, can impose undue stress upon families everywhere.

Many seniors are resistant to moving to a memory care home, especially likely among the 37% of adults who have never left their hometown. Coping with the financial repercussions only compounds this apprehension.

For now, seniors and their families will be forced to make a tough decision: save for future healthcare costs and hope for the best, or invest in long-term care policies and hope for the best.

Construction for Detroit’s new City Club Apartments is now underway, and the project promises to provide a true sense of luxury — not unlike an updated version of the opulent hotel that once stood in the same location for 90 years.

The Statler Hotel, with its 800 rooms and sense of affluence, was once one of the top places to stay in Detroit. Harry Houdini, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Jerry Lewis were among the hotel’s most notable guests. Built in 1915, the hotel later fell into disrepair and was finally demolished in 2005. Now, the City Club Apartments development will take its place.

While around 31% of renovating households choose to remodel a single room during a given project, the City Club complex will be a much more massive undertaking. The complex is expected to span seven stories with 288 residential units. Plus, it’ll have more than 10,000 square feet of retail space, which will include a restaurant, a theater, a pet shop, a fresh market, and outdoor terraces. Its location makes it convenient to Detroit’s venues for sports and entertainment, as well as the QLINE and People Mover.

Although the construction industry eliminated more than 40% of its workforce between 2006 and 2011, there’s been some recovery since then due to a more favorable economy. When Detroit emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2014, the rental market started to heat up — thus the need for renovations and, eventually, new builds. The City Club Apartments project seemed far-fetched at that time and it took longer to begin construction than anticipated, but it looks as if the apartments will become a reality soon enough.

That said, living there won’t be feasible for everyone. The project is going to cost around $70 million to complete, for one thing. And while there’s no news yet as to how much the units will cost to rent, it’s likely to be in the thousands every month. However, 20% of the complex will feature affordable apartments, with some duplexes, penthouses, and townhouses thrown in the mix.

According to the developers, the sky is the limit for this project.

As City Club Apartments Chairman and CEO Jonathan Holtzman told Daily Detroit, “Why can’t an apartment community combine great design, green sustainability, pet friendly, with special bathrooms, kitchens and closets. Why can’t you have rooftop terraces that have a vegetable garden.”

If the floor plans for the units are anything to go by, it seems like renters can have it all — even a “sexy bath” (yes, that’s actually what the press kit says and is mentioned in the blueprints for Ann Arbor City Club Apartments, which were built by the same company). There’ll even be a “bark park” for pets, an indoor/outdoor pool and hot tub, a 24-hour fitness center and 24-hour concierge, and more.

Currently, there’s a six-month wait for apartments in Detroit’s downtown and mid-town areas. It’s estimated that the City Club Apartments will be ready for move-in by November 2018. Although that seems like an ambitious timeline, it’s clear that Detroit residents are in need of housing. Whether they’ll be able to actually afford these units — or will even want all the bells and whistles — is another story.