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“When the Water Ends,” a 16-minute video produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration with MediaStorm, tells the story of this conflict and of the increasingly dire drought conditions facing parts of East Africa. To report this video, Evan Abramson, a 32-year-old photographer and videographer, spent two months in the region early this year, living among the herding communities. He returned with a tale that many climate scientists say will be increasingly common in the 21st century and beyond — how worsening drought in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere will pit group against group, nation against nation. As one UN official told Abramson, the clashes between Kenyan and Ethiopian pastoralists represent “some of the world’s first climate-change conflicts.”

But the story recounted in “When the Water Ends” is not only about climate change. It’s also about how deforestation and land degradation — due in large part to population pressures — are exacting a toll on impoverished farmers and nomads as the earth grows ever more barren.

The video focuses on four groups of pastoralists — the Turkana of Kenya and the Dassanech, Nyangatom, and Mursi of Ethiopia — who are among the more than two dozen tribes whose lives and culture depend on the waters of the Omo River and the body of water into which it flows, Lake Turkana.

dialogue is far removed, however, from the intensely heated conflict that exists at the smaller, more personal scale. On the one hand you have the millions of Americans who play games, whether on a console or a smartphone, and have been raised in a time where such things are ubiquitous. On the other is a (generally older) population whose exposure to games has been limited to the most visible examples of the medium, including billion-dollar series like Call of Duty and notorious time sinks like FarmVille that paint a limited portrait of gaming's full range.

"You’re not wrong to be concerned about the time your son spends playing video games," wrote Moody. "But let me ask you this: If there were no video games here, wouldn’t there be some other stimulus that could threaten his time by diverting his attention away from, wait, what did you call it? 'What I feel are much more worthwhile and ultimately rewarding pursuits.’ 

fears about video games are understandable. Like anything else, they can become the focal point of unhealthy behavior all too easily, a point Moody is quick to emphasize. As Moody says again and again, though, that’s hardly the fault of video games.

“A program officer from a foundation recently asked me, ‘Is the work you’re doing STEM education or science education?’ ” said Elizabeth Stage, the director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley. “I drew him a Venn diagram, showing him what’s central about science and how that overlaps with technology, engineering and math.” Dr. Stage, a mathematician by training, thinks it’s a “false distinction” to “silo out” the different disciplines, and would much prefer to focus on what the fields have in common, like problem-solving, arguing from evidence and reconciling conflicting views. “That’s what we should have in the bulls’-eye of our target,” she said.

Yet others don’t frame the word “science” so narrowly, as the province of the given rather than of the forged. Science has always encompassed the applied and the basic, and the impulses to explore and to invent have always been linked. Galileo built a telescope and then trained it on the sky. Advances in technology illuminate realms beyond our born senses, and those insights in turn yield better scientific toys. Engineers use math and physics and the scientific mind-set in everything they design; and those who don’t, please let us know, so we can fly someone else’s airplane and not cross your bridge when we come to it. Whatever happened to the need for interdisciplinary thinking? Why promote a brand that codifies atomization? Besides, acronyms encourage rampant me-tooism. Mr. Dyak said that some have lobbied for the addition of medicine to the scholastic program, complete with a second M. “It’s called STEM squared,” he said. Even the arts are hankering for an orthographic position, he added. STEAM education: great books, labs and motherboards, and free rug cleaning, too.

engaging in digital media activities together such as watching films, playing video games and keeping in touch via calls and messaging apps brings families together rather than dividing them

rather than displacing established ways of interacting, playing and communicating – digital media sit alongside them

the report’s authors highlighted parents’ concerns about “screen time”, which is a source of conflict in homes, though sleep and behaviour cause more disagreement. They also flag up a lack of support for parents who may face particular challenges regarding their child or family’s digital media use. Whereas on other issues they might turn to their own parents for advice, the digital generation gap means they are unlikely to be able to help