For as long as humans have been around, we’ve been asking ourselves questions about our purpose in life and how we can best fulfill it. These existential questions seem to be a part of human nature and often drive people to start social innovation projects so they can leave a meaningful mark on the world. But sometimes, it’s hard to see what difference one person can make and how we can help our local and global communities.

Even if you’re not trying to solve world hunger or global warming, brainstorming ways to help your community can make a big difference. When we help others, it doesn’t stop with us. Studies have found that when we help others, those around us are more likely to help, too. This means that the more we give our time or resources to the issues we care about, the more others will give in return. In that way, one person’s actions really can change the world for good.

Roz develops friendships, becomes a contributing member of the island community and even takes on the role of motherhood when she adopts and raises Brightbill the gosling.

Roz shows her good intentions through action, she helps and cares for the animals. She builds gardens and shelters and works hard to keep them safe. Roz the robot models the value of community and a life spent in service to others.

Altruism is contagious and if you’re figuring out how you can make a difference, take it one day at a time. You may not always see how you impact the people you’re serving, but everything you do to promote change can add up over time. If every person committed to just one act of kindness a day, think how much better our world would become.

"One small spark is all it takes to light up pitch darkness." - Bella Forrest

Equipped with little more than a notebook, binoculars, and her fascination with wildlife, Jane Goodall braved a realm of unknowns to give the world a remarkable window into humankind’s closest living relatives. Through nearly 60 years of groundbreaking work, Dr. Jane Goodall has not only shown us the urgent need to protect chimpanzees from extinction; she has also redefined species conservation to include the needs of local people and the environment. Today she travels the world, speaking about the threats facing chimpanzees and environmental crises, urging each of us to take action on behalf of all living things and planet we share.

In 1831, a young naturalist called Charles Darwin boarded a ship called the HMS Beagle and set out on a fantastic five-year voyage around the world to study and collect animal, plant and rock samples.

Darwin was amazed at the variety of species he saw on his adventure. The Beagle visited the Galápagos Islands (a group of 19 islands and more than 100 islets and rocks in the Pacific Ocean, about 1,000km off the coast of Ecuador in South America) and while he was there Darwin collected specimens and made notes that would eventually change the way people thought about the world…

Darwin noticed that although the different islands had similar creatures and plants, many seemed to have adapted to suit their local environments.

n 1858, Darwin revealed his ‘theory of evolution by natural selection’, to explain how animals adapted to their environment to survive. And the following year, he published On The Origin Of Species – a book that would change the world forever! Darwin explained how species can ‘evolve’ (change or develop) over time through a process called ‘Natural Selection’. This shocked everyone because, until then, it was widely believed that all the animals on the planet had been made at the same time by one creator. Some people still believe that today. But Darwin scientifically proved all the species on Earth had evolved from earlier species – and that includes us!

Greta Thunberg is a 17-year-old who grew up in Stockholm, in Sweden. Greta has Asperger's syndrome, a developmental disorder, and has described it as a gift and said being different is a "superpower".

In May 2018, aged 15, Greta won a climate change essay competition in a local newspaper. Three months later, in August, she started protesting in front of the Swedish parliament building, vowing to continue until the Swedish government met the carbon emissions target agreed by world leaders in Paris, in 2015.

She held a sign that read "School Strike for Climate" and began regularly missing lessons to go on strike on Fridays, urging students around the world to join her.

By December 2018, more than 20,000 students around the world had joined her in countries including Australia, the UK, Belgium, the US and Japan.

As her fame has grown, she has called for governments around the world to do more to cut global emissions. She has spoken at international meetings, including the UN's 2019 climate change gathering in New York, and this year's World Economic Forum in Davos.

At the forum, she called for banks, firms and governments to stop investing and subsidising fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and gas. "Instead, they should invest their money in existing sustainable technologies, research and in restoring nature," she said.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 1564.

Many people believe William Shakespeare is the best British writer of all time.

His many works are about life, love, death, revenge, grief, jealousy, murder, magic and mystery.

He wrote the blockbuster plays of his day - some of his most famous are Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet.

It has been almost 400 years since he died, but people still celebrate his work all around the world.

Shakespeare wrote 37 plays (though some experts think it may have been more). He wrote three different types of plays:

Histories - about the lives of kings and famous figures from history

Comedies - which end with a marriage

Tragedies - which end with the death of the main character

Shakespeare also wrote plenty of poetry and in 1609 published a book of 154 sonnets.

Malala's early childhood was one of happiness and peace. Her father was a teacher who ran several schools. Many Pakistani girls did not attend school, but this was not the case with Malala. Malala loved learning and going to school. She dreamt of one day becoming a teacher, a doctor, or a politician. Her father always encouraged her to learn more and taught her that she could accomplish anything.

Around the time Malala was ten years old, the Taliban began to take over the region where she lived. The Taliban were strict Muslims who demanded that all people follow Islamic Sharia law. They said that women were to stay at home. If a woman left her home, she was to wear a burqa (a garment that covers the body, head, and face) and must be accompanied by a male relative.

As the Taliban gained more control, they began to enforce new laws. Women would not be allowed to vote or have jobs. There would be no dancing, television, movies, or music. Eventually, the Taliban demanded that the girls schools be shut down. Girls schools that were not shut down were burned or destroyed.

About this time, Malala's father was approached by the BBC to get a female student to write about her life under Taliban rule. Despite being worried about the safety of his family, Malala's father agreed to let Malala write a blog for the BBC. The blog was called Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl. Malala wrote under the pen name "Gul Makai", a heroine from a Pashtun folktale.

Malala soon became famous for writing her blog. She also began to speak in public about the treatment of the Taliban. War broke out in the Swat region as the Pakistani government began to fight back against the Taliban. Eventually, the government took back control of the area and Malala was able to return to school.

The Taliban were not happy with Malala. Even though the fighting had ended and the schools were open again, there were still Taliban throughout the city. Malala was told to stop speaking out and received numerous death threats.

One day after school, on October 9, 2012, Malala was taking the bus home. Suddenly, a man with a gun boarded the bus. He asked "Who is Malala?" and said he would kill them all if they didn't tell him. Then he shot Malala.

The bullet struck Malala in the head and she was very sick. She woke up a week later in a hospital in England. The doctors weren't sure if she would live or have brain damage, but Malala had survived. She still had to have a number of surgeries, but was attending school again six months later.

Getting shot didn't stop Malala. On her sixteenth birthday Malala gave a speech to the United Nations. In the speech she spoke about wanting all girls to get an education. She didn't want revenge or violence on the Taliban (even the man who shot her), she just wanted peace and opportunity for all.

Sessions was born in San Francisco, California, and educated in Oakland. At the age of six, she moved with her family to a farm next to Lake Merritt. She attended the University of California, Berkeley in 1881 with a degree in natural science.

Sessions quickly moved on to her true interest, the cultivation of plants. In 1885, she purchased a nursery; within a few years she was the owner of a flower shop as well as growing fields and nurseries in Coronado, Pacific Beach, and Mission Hills. The Mission Hills Nursery, which she founded in 1910 and sold to her employees the Antonicelli brothers in 1926, is still in operation.

In 1892 Sessions struck a deal with the City of San Diego to lease 30 acres (120,000 m²) of land in Balboa Park (then called City Park) as her growing fields. In return, she agreed to plant 100 trees a year in the mostly barren park, as well as 300 trees a year in other parts of San Diego.

This arrangement left the park with an array of cypress, pine, oak, pepper trees and eucalyptus grown in her gardens from seeds imported from around the world; virtually all of the older trees still seen in the park were planted by her. Among many other plant introductions, she is credited with importing and popularizing the jacaranda, now very familiar in the city.

She also collected, propagated, and introduced many California native plants to the horticulture trade and into gardens. In 1900, she took a trip to Baja California to find a palm tree not native in San Diego to be planted at the park. She would also later take a seven-month trip through Europe where she collected multiple plant varieties that she eventually helped plant in the park.

Together with Alfred D. Robinson she co-founded the San Diego Floral Association in 1907; it is the oldest garden club in Southern California. The garden club was influential in teaching San Diegans how to grow ornamental and edible plants, at a time when most San Diego landscaping consisted of dirt and sagebrush