Moreover, the children visiting the parks experience nature as a kind of experiential garnish -- just so many ornamental trees and flowers to pass during the walk from a sprawling parking lot to the roller coaster rides roaring and whipping their way through the parks. Nowhere is there a reminder that the region represents the northern border of the Everglades, a huge semi-tropical wilderness that has been paved and developed in the state's seemingly endless pursuit of vacationers and retirees.

Even the natural sounds that might infiltrate the parks are negated by a ubiquitous, invisible network of piped-in background music. Though generally up-tempo rock and roll or merry fantasy music, the kind one might hear in a Disney movie score, the parks also go so far as to play recorded nature sounds in corners and nooks not specifically themed for another purpose.

Families, look around you. Green is not green in Orlando.

Orange Lake resort and Islands of Adventure theme park

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The Washington, DC home page for Examiner.com reveals local and national content from writers who are paid according to the hits their stories receive.

Brady Holt was bored in history class last week. But instead of doodling in a notebook or tapping away at Brick Breaker on his phone, the 20-year-old University of Maryland junior used the period to knock out a review of the new Hyundai Sienna minivan. He posted it to his "DC Car Examiner" section of Examiner.com, and waited. That afternoon, some 7,000 people read Holt's piece. At a penny per view, the journalism major - and somewhat indifferent history student - netted $70.

Holt is one of thousands of writers for Examiner.com, a network of news websites a little over a year and a half old with headquarters in Denver and contributors worldwide. He has been writing (the company would say "examining") for just over a year, which makes him part of the old guard. Most writers, like hunting and fishing enthusiast C. Boyd Pfeiffer, are much newer to the site.

Pfeiffer, who lives in Phoenix, Md., north of Baltimore, has been writing for more than 35 years, including some 26 books. He has been contributing his "Outdoorsman" column for about two months.

The 72-year-old author of "The Compleat Surfcaster" might seem an odd fit for an experimental news service. But Pfeiffer, who turned out a column for the Baltimore Examiner, a print newspaper with the same owner that folded last Februrary, said he liked the idea of trying something new. "This seemed like an opportunity," he said.

Pfeiffer's deep knowledge of the Maryland and Pennsylvania streams, rivers, and forests presents an opportunity to the managers of Examiner.com, as well. By embracing everyone from quilting buffs to "sports babes" fans, Clarity Media Group, which owns the network, has sought to create a clearinghouse for stories that fit seemingly every conceivable reader.

Dave Flomberg, senior manager of editorial operations and support for Examiner.com, called the site "hyper-local." He compared it to a mashup of local information sites Yelp and About.com, and said much of its appeal is in the feeling of community the site can provide.

"In many cases, it's local people discussing their passions with each other," Flomberg said. A nightlife columnist for the defunct Rocky Mountain News, Flomberg was one of the first editorial staffers hired at Examiner.com when he took the job last fall. At present, he estimates some 70 full-time staffers are now employed, half of whom are in editorial.

'Hyper-local' or national content?

The Examiner.com site for Washington, DC features a mix of reporting about local and national subjects. Rhea Yablon Kennedy, 29, writes about farmers' markets in the area, including Dupont Circle, Alexandria, and the recently opened market near the White House, which went a little crazy after a visit from the First Lady in September.

Kennedy, a confirmed foodie who also blogs about healthy eats like tofu turkey and kale on her own site, started her "DC Farmers Market" section last May to gain exposure as a food writer.

A friend who contributes to the community blog DCist.com showed Kennedy that "online writing - paid or not - can really get your name out there," she said in an e-mail interview. A graduate writing student at Johns Hopkins University, Kennedy said she finds the affiliation with a recognized national publication helpful.

"'Can I interview you for my food blog?'" or "'I'm a creative writing student'" only goes so far," she said. "'I'm a reporter for Examiner.com' sounds much better."

Many of the contributors to the Washington, DC Examiner.com, though residents of the area, write about nationally relevant topics like Brady Holt's car reviews, or the White House party crashers.

At a penny per page view, writers who are eyeing the site as a serious source of income have a strong incentive to cover subjects with broad appeal. The "Alexandria Parenting Multiples" column is probably a bit too hyper-local to get much traction outside of its twins-in-Alexandria niche.

Most contributors are hobbyists

The most widely read writer on the site at the moment is Amanda Bell, the "Twlight Examiner." Flomberg said Bell has done two things very well: she has capitalized on a popular topic, the Twilight book and movie series, and is providing a hefty amount of rich content.

How much? Last Wednesday she published eight posts in one day.

"When we first started this, nobody knew what the hell Twilight was," Flomberg said. But Bell's savvy pursuit of the topic has positioned her as a leading commentator on the series. "She's commanding respect from the people involved in Twilight," he said. So much so that she is now being fed insider information in the same way a writer for traditional trade magazines like Variety might be.

Not every writer can be an Amanda Bell. Indeed, most are nowhere close. Holt, one of the more popular contributors in the Washington, DC region, estimates he will make about $5,000 this year from his Examiner.com column. That's a nice supplement to a full-time job, but Holt said he does not expect ever to be able to make a living from his Examiner.com work.

None of writers interviewed said they were writing for the money. Most are young, either students or full-time workers who are building portfolios in their spare time.

Carly Beetsch, 25, works in the marketing department for Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. She doesn't write about theater or marketing on Examiner.com, though: this is her fourth week moonlighting as the "Graffiti Examiner."

Beetsch learned about the site from reading Examiner.com reviews of the theater company where she works. In an e-mail interview, she said she has always liked to write, and took up her column as a way to explore her interest in graffiti art.

Search Engine Optimization and the local advertising market

Examiner.com has demonstrated an uncanny knack for getting its writers to the top of Google searches. Since most users enter a site through a search, rather than browsing down from the home page, this may be as valuable a service as any Examiner.com provides its bloggers.

That's true for Amanda Bell's Twilight vigil, but it might also hold some hope for niche writers like Beetsch, Kennedy, and Pfeiffer. The local advertising market is estimated at nearly $140 billion, only 10% of which is currently flowing to digital content. If hyper-local content providers can build up a solid portfolio of articles about graffiti innovator Banksy, Takoma Park's farmer's market, and Chesapeake striped bass fishing, the long tail might eventually bring in the advertising revenues that are absent today.

Even if that day comes, it is not at all clear whether Clarity Media Group will re-examine its pay scale. Its writers have so far shown they are willing to work hard for, in most cases, very little.

Activitst Anya Schoolman and her son Walter started a solar coop in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood in Washington, DC.

Jimmy Carter was ahead of his time. The president famously installed solar panels on the roof of the White House West Wing in 1979 to highlight his "new solar strategy" for the nation. The energy-saving move was largely symbolic (the solar cells were used to heat hot water for the staff), and the panels were removed by President Reagan in 1986. Some 30 years later, the nation may finally be ready for the odd-looking rooftop collectors. The recent success of some regional solar co-operatives in the District and its suburbs may herald a grass-roots energy revolution.

Carter would, no doubt, be proud. But it turns out that the two 12-year-old boys who created the Mt. Pleasant Solar Coop three years ago were inspired by another executive officer: Vice President Al Gore.

Walter Lynn and Diego Arene-Morley were compelled by Gore's climate documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," to study energy consumption in their homes and those of their friends and neighbors. What began in 2006 as an examination of fluorescent light bulbs has blossomed, with the help of Walter's activist mother Anya Schoolman, into a significant solar co-op with some fifty households participating to date.

Schoolman presented her co-op model to a room of contractors, lobbyists, and solar panel installers in a workshop on a snowy day at the final session of the Solar Energy Focus Conference in Gaithersburg, Md. The conference, which featured plenary speakers from state government, industry, and academia, was hosted by the Maryland, DC, and Virginia Solar Energy Industries Association.

Not Just for Hippies

In the process of building the cooperative and setting up the solar panels, Schoolman and her family learned a few things. Her roof, it turns out, had seven layers that had to be pulled away before she could have her panels installed. Cian Robinson, a Martinsville, Va. management consultant, called it a "burrito roof."

Other lessons: some of her neighbors are a little crazy, the DC City Council can be a boon (but the regulation process is a boodoggle), and above all, demand for solar is surprisingly strong.

"People want it in a real, tangible way," Schoolman said, noting that the members of the co-operative, who span race, class, gender, and ethnic lines, are motivated by a desire to improve their homes. They are not the sort of people who would think, necessarily, of attending a candlelight vigil on the Mall to raise awareness of the climate talks in Copenhagen, which started today.

Schoolman's neighborhood, which is bordered by Adams Mill Road and 17th street on the east and west, and Newton and Irving streets on the north and south, is a somewhat-gentrified middle-class Latino neighborhood with a sizable Vietnamese community.

No Right Model

Schoolman lives in the middle of a block of row houses with flat roofs, typical of Mt. Pleasant but unusual in other residential neighborhoods. A flat roof is not ideal for solar paneling, which works better on a pitched roof, where it can be angled to face the sun more efficiently. But Schoolman's family found that newly manufactured glue-on "peel and stick" solar strips were ideal for her home and have functioned well over the two months since their installation. The strips on Schoolman's south-facing roof required no drilling into the roof, and no racking system for mounting.

Some of the other members of the cooperative were not so lucky, having east-facing roofs, consistent tree shade, and other impediments to solar. Schoolman said the key to addressing these was to allow each household to select its own.

She said the Common Cents Solar Coop in Chevy Chase uses an organizational model with paid staff, as opposed to the all-volunteer Mt. Pleasant group, and its members live in very different kinds of homes. The co-operative in Mt. Vernon uses a still different model; the Capitol Hill group, yet another.

The key, she said, is to find the solution that works best for each neighborhood.

'My House, My Roof'

For all their differences, Mt. Pleasant residents share at least one thing with rural homeowners in far-flung parts of the country: they prize self-determination and hate corporate and bureaucratic meddling. Pepco, which sets rates and provides services behind a cloud of seeming inflexibility and obscurity, is a common target for residents' complaints.

Schoolman noted that the energy company has recently spent millions on a green advertising campaign. That's money, she says, that could be better spent working with homeowners to set up metering systems that function better with solar panels.

Or better yet, some may dream of a day of true energy independence, when homes are totally self-sustaining and Pepco is out of the picture. While bureaucrats negotiate in Copenhagen and local pols entertain lobbyists, "mainstream America is about 'Let's make this work in my community,'" Schoolman said. "My house, my roof, my self-reliance."

In an effort to close the gap between its highest and lowest achieving students, the city adopted a small but ambitious new Head Start program aimed at kindergarten students and their teachers in fall 2006 called the Total Learning Initiative. The program, which is a hands-on, arts-intensive training regimen administered by the Total Learning Institute (TLI), launched with $500,000 of initial funding.

"It's expensive, but it's incredibly effective," noted TLI trainer Patricia Bogart at the World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha, where she and president Susan Snyder were present to receive an innovation prize. She said that after three years, test scores in the schools that have implemented the program are "soaring."

Total Learning Initiative trainer Patricia Bogart said the key to her program's success has been reaching the youngest students first.

Its cost may well raise some eyebrows, especially since only a few students have benefited so far. Just one kindergarten classroom in one school implemented the program in its first year. State lawmakers, impressed with early results, allocated $1.2 million per year for the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years to expand the TLI program to 16 classrooms in eight schools in Bridgeport, according to a 2007 article in The Connecticut Post. Other Head Start programs statewide, by contrast, received a total of $1 million in new funding between them.

Unlike many other teacher training systems, which are conducted outside of the school day, the Total Learning Initiative trainers work almost every day with teachers in their classes, suggesting new approaches and working directly with the students. "We're right there in the trenches," said Bogart. "After we've worked with a teacher, day-in and day-out for a year, they've changed the way they teach."

The program focuses on early childhood development, starting with kindergarten students in its first year, and expanding to first and second grades in the years following. "The key is reaching them as early as possible," said Bogart, who noted that it is much more difficult to close an achievement gap than to prevent one from forming.

Bogart said she hopes the innovation prize will help bring national, even global attention to the program, which currently employs 23 trainers and operates only in schools around Bridgeport.

The WISE Qatar sign outside the conference center features piled stones, which represent the notion of building in the desert.

And for students who face more than one of a host of identified risk factors, including geographic isolation, gender, language, and disability, the picture grows ever more desperate. If, for instance, you are a physically handicapped girl in rural Qatar, and worse, a recent immigrant, you will likely not receive an adequate education.

On the other hand, recent advances offer more to the neediest than to the wealthy. Special needs students, such as those with dyslexia or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and students with physical handicaps, can benefit tremendously from new technologies, such as voice recognition software, and diverse learning environments, such as multimedia instruction, but only if they have access to the materials and expertise.

Opportunities, it seems, are abundant, yet "the low quality of education has undermined" prospects for young people in much of the Arab world, according to "Generation in Waiting, The Unfulfilled Promise of Young People in the Middle East," the report by the Brookings Institution. The total spent in school for Iranians under 30, for example, has more than doubled from the prior generation, but test scores have dropped significantly, especially among the poorest.

The Ritz-Carlton in Doha played host to the inaugural WISE Qatar conference in November.

In this seemingly dire climate, the Qatar Foundation, an educational non-profit funded by the Qatari royal family, convened its first annual World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha in mid-November, paying travel expenses and lodging for teachers, administrators, and businesspeople from as far as Cameroon, Japan and Australia to begin what the organization hopes will be a lasting collaboration to improve education in the Middle East, and worldwide.

David Arnold, president of the American University in Cairo, feels that the recent gains in access in the Middle East are a prerequisite for improvements in quality. "The sequencing is important," said Arnold at a panel session. "We are not living up to a fundamental responsibility if we provide excellent educations only to a select few."

But following access with quality may not be enough, said Katy Webley, who heads the education branch of the UK-based advocacy group Save the Children. The poorest families must bear the cost of sending their children to school, rather than work, she noted. "If they decide that their childrens' education is not relevant, they will pull them out of school" before the schools have improved. Quality, in her view, must go hand in hand with access.

They may differ on methods and solutions, but the panelists at WISE 2009 agreed on at least one thing: young people in Arab states are falling behind, and, warns the Brookings report, "institutions which once ensured intergenerational equity and improved economic wellbeing are no longer working."

Construction is well underway at Stoddert Elementary in Glover Park.

Memorably described as a "handsome triathlete" by the Post's Michael Grunwald during his run for office in 2006 (next to Linda Cropp's "matronly grandmother"), Fenty has always been enthusiastic about the benefits of exercise--especially for kids.

Since taking office, he's been moving forward aggressively on that basis, using $21.5 million in taxpayer money to update football fields and tracks at six DC high schools in 2007, and most recently unveiling the dazzling new 55,000 square foot Wilson Aquatic Center.

"I think people demand better recreational centers, better playgrounds, and we've got a great team that is doing just that," Fenty said in late August at a ribbon-cutting for a new elementary school soccer field in Columbia Heights.

Closer to my home--across the street, in fact--Stoddert Elementary is well into a yearlong "modernization" that will add athletic facilities to the school's campus. This upgrade has so far involved the razing of 50 or 60 old-growth trees in the northwest corner of the park, reduced parking on Davis Place, and led to an awful lot of early-morning construction noise. (Why do backhoes spend so much time in reverse?)

Some of the crankier tenants in my building are beginning to raise a stink. They say the new buildings are unnecessary and intrusive, and complain that the gymnasium will be open to the public, with city-wide basketball tournaments, increasing parking problems on game nights. There will also be a new access road directly across from my building.

The ANC presentation for Stoddert's modernization reveals some compelling facilities upgrades.

I confess I was initially on the side of the complainers, feeling that Fenty's knee-jerk "build more athletic facilities" approach was going to ruin my pretty little park, at vast expense to the city during a severe economic recession. It still might, but I'm warming to the project all the same.

Taking a look at the ANC presentation, it's clear that the modernization involves much more than putting up a gym where some beautiful old trees once stood. The new LEED-certified buildings will also comprise a media center, cafeteria, and visual and performing arts space. The draft educational specifications are impressive.

So, despite recent questions about the wisdom of Fenty's recreational profligacy, and resisting the urge to adopt a NIMBY attitude, I'm throwing my support behind the project. Or, at least, I'm hoping it will turn out to be the right thing for the kids and the neighborhood. That seems possible, at this point.