Sustainability at the Smithsonian

Debris is heaped on the banks of a river.

Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery

After Hurricane Helene, Survivors Have Been in a Race Against Time to Protect Family Heirlooms, Photographs and Keepsakes

Two young people surrounded by greenery. One person has their hand outstretched towards a leafy bush in front of them.

Smithsonian American Women's History Museum

Environmental Justice Academy Educates and Inspires Youth for Innovative Change

Candid photo of Elena Terry smiling holding a white dish full of colorful beans, peppers, and corn tilted away from her.

Smithsonian American Women's History Museum

How Chef Elena Terry Revisited Heritage Seeds to Cultivate Hope

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National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

Ten Fascinating Facts About the Arapaima, the Largest Freshwater Fish in South America

A clear blue river winds through a reedy wetland, reflecting the clouds overhead. A wooden boardwalk with rails overlooks the river on the right.

Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Hot, Fresh & Flooded: These Wetlands Spew Out the Most Methane

Imama

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Between Pasture and Forest: The Crusade to Protect the Jaguar in Panama

Head and shoulders photo of Denise Breitburg, a woman with glasses and shoulder-length gray hair, with forested mountains in the background.

Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Wait, the Ocean Is Losing Oxygen? Q&A With Denise Breitburg

Sustainability News From Smithsonian Magazine

Current experiments are focused on tomatoes, lettuce and other small-scale crops, with hopes to extend to high-calorie crops like grains and sweet potatoes in the future. 

INNOVATION

Can Electro-Agriculture Revolutionize the Way We Grow Food?

BlueGreen Water Technologies treats a harmful algal bloom in Doctors Lake in Clay County, Florida.

INNOVATION

How Cleaning Up Harmful Algal Blooms Could Help Fight Climate Change

These four lightbulbs augured a future with nuclear power.

SMART NEWS

On This Day in 1951, Four Illuminated Lightbulbs in Idaho Were Evidence of the First Time a Nuclear Power Plant Generated Electricity

The plant-based egg substitutes available today are less than perfect. Food scientists are working hard to improve them — and, maybe, make them better tasting and more nutritious than the real thing.

INNOVATION

Scientists Are Trying to Crack the Recipe for the Perfect Plant-Based Eggs

In Ecuador, a glass frog from a new species identified in 2022, Hyalinobatrachium nouns, hangs from the underside of a leaf, seen from below.

SCIENCE

The Andes’ Translucent Glass Frogs Need to Be Seen to Be Saved

Climate Change News

Ice calves off the Breidamerkurjokull, a glacier in Iceland. Some scientists suggest prehistoric glaciers hold the answers to how life evolved on Earth.

SMART NEWS

How Enormous Glaciers on the Frozen 'Snowball Earth' Might Have Bulldozed the Path to Complex Life on Our Planet

The Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles experiences slow-moving landslides that accelerated last fall, according to recent research.

SMART NEWS

Parts of California Are Sinking, and It Could Worsen the Effects of Sea-Level Rise, NASA Study Finds

The iceberg A23a, seen in the South Atlantic Ocean near South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands in November 2024

SMART NEWS

The World's Largest Iceberg Runs Aground, Potentially Averting a Collision With Penguin and Seal Breeding Areas

An illustration of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, with branches connecting to other ocean currents

SMART NEWS

Earth's Strongest Ocean Current Could Slow 20 Percent by 2050 Because of Climate Change, Study Finds

In October 2024, scientists created dozens of man-made nests and deposited 300,000 Chinook salmon eggs. Now, those eggs are hatching.

SMART NEWS

Chinook Salmon Are Swimming in This California River for the First Time in More Than 80 Years

Mother polar bears spend months inside snowy dens with their cubs. Then, the family emerges together in the spring.

SMART NEWS

Rare Footage Shows Baby Polar Bears Emerging From Their Den in the Arctic

Train Smoke, Edvard Munch, 1900

SMART NEWS

See the Breathtaking Landscape Paintings Inspired by the Boreal Forest, From Europe to North America