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Everyone wants to make the world a better place and every year on Oct. 27, Make A Different Day powerfully moves millions of volunteers across the country to act on their convictions. Last Saturday, 42 volunteers from the University of Colorado at Boulder participating in Make A Difference Day activities went to neighborhoods around the county, helping local people with their gardening chores or working to beautify public places.

Beginning Nov. 1, University of Colorado at Boulder students, staff and faculty will notice posters and stickers around campus asking them to turn out lights and put their computers in "sleep mode" when they are not in use - all in the name of conservation. The stickers and posters, which read "Generation Green: When Not in Use Turn Out the Juice," are part of a yearlong experimental effort by the CU Environmental Center and Facilities Management to curb electricity use on the Boulder campus. Facilities Management has provided $15,000 for the project.

CU-Boulder Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Ron Stump has announced that The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has approved a grant of $117,000 to extend its support of the campus alcohol education program through August 2002. The program, called A Matter of Degree Program or AMOD, addresses high-risk drinking among college students on 10 selected campuses across the country. CU-Boulder was one of the original four campuses to receive a five-year grant, which has been matched, in part, by the university.

When this year's Leonid meteor shower peaks on Nov. 17-18, Colorado skywatchers may be treated to the best show in years, according to Francisco Salas of CU-Boulder's Fiske Planetarium. The Leonid meteors are part of the debris trail expelled by comet Tempel-Tuttle in its 33-year orbit around the sun. The Earth happens to pass through this trail of debris each November.

State and University of Colorado officials along with several major industry sponsors today unveiled a multi-million-dollar visualization center that offers advanced immersive visualization capabilities for a variety of business sectors, as well as opportunities for scientists to better understand the natural environment.

The process of school change is never easy, even under ideal circumstances. Kevin Welner, an assistant professor in the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Education, studied how four school districts from California to Delaware struggled with school reform efforts. His findings are contained in a new book titled "Legal Rights, Local Wrongs: When Community Control Collides with Educational Equity."

The University of Colorado at Boulder, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Wisconsin will receive $5.8 million to help understand and improve the way students learn and are taught algebra.

The Silicon Flatiron Telecommunications Program at the University of Colorado School of Law will hold a conference titled "The Future of Broadband Communications" on Nov. 5 to examine how broadband connectivity will transform society, education and the economy. The conference will be from 3:30 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. in the Lindsley Memorial Courtroom at the law school.

A talk on "Geographies of Terror: Manufacturing Nationalism and the Politics of Urban Reconstruction in New York City" will be held at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Monday, Oct. 29. Distinguished Professor Neil Smith of the City University of New York will speak at 4 p.m. in the Hale Science Building, room 270. The event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow at the Heritage Center in Old Main.

The Building Community Campaign at CU-Boulder will sponsor an interactive theater performance on Thursday, Nov. 1, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the University Memorial Center's Dennis Small Cultural Center, room 305. Titled "What Will Happen Next?" the short piece portrays the reactions of several fictional CU-Boulder students when they encounter racist graffiti on campus. The rest of the event will be filled by a discussion of the scene's issues.