captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> brown: after israel's reported weekend air strikes in and around damascus, more questions as to whether the syrian civil war is widening beyond its borders. good evening. i'm jeffrey brown. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the newshour tonight, we explore the options on the table for the u.s., amid growing calls for international intervention in syria. >> brown: then, as the u.s. government weighs new regulation, we debate whether publicly traded companies should have to disclose their political donations. >> suarez: special correspondent john tulenko visits a middle school in maine where students are trading in their notebooks and pencils for robots and wind turbines.

>> brown: we turn again to the subject of guns in america, as a texas man proves technology has made it possible to easily make your own pistol at home. >> anyone can create it in the privacy of their garage with a couple of clicks and some software and a download from the internet. anywhere there's a computer and an internet connection, there's a promise of a gun. >> suarez: and we close with a report on poland's embrace of fracking, despite concerns from some residents about land rights and the environment. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and by b.p. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: israel today played down a weekend of air strikes that hit syria. the syrians, in turn, threatened to strike back, but there were no signs of new hostilities in the offing. on syrian state television today, images of the smoldering remains of a military complex near damascus. it was hit early sunday by air

strikes attributed to the israeli military, the second in three days. israel did not officially claim responsibility, but senior officials there said the targets were advanced iranian missiles being shift to hezbollah militants in lebanon. israeli leaders warned again sunday that hez bol must not obtain game-changing weapons. >> it's vital for the security and the stability of the middle east that no weapons of mass destruction will spill over to the hands of terror organizations. >> brown: similar israeli strike last january apparently targeted antiaircraft missiles that were being shipped to hezbollah. >> first of all... brown: on saturday, president obama told telemundo that israel has the right to protect itself. >> i'll let the israeli government confirm or deny whatever strikes they've taken. what i have said in the past -- and i continue to believe this -- is that the israelis

justifiably have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terrorist organizations like hezbollah. >> brown: the israelis have insisted they are not taking sides in the syrian civil war, but the regime of president assad condemned the latest attacks. >> the israeli invaders committed a blatant act of aggression against syria. the syrian military has the right and responsibility to protect its country and people from any form of infringement either at home or abroad. >> brown: iran joined in, warning that israel is, quote, playing with fire. a syrian opposition group also criticized the israelis. >> this aggression is an aggression against all syrian people with all its forces. we call on the international community to prevent the israeli enemy from using the internal situation in syria to accomplish its goals. >> brown: there were no new air strikes today. prime minister benjamin

netanyahu traveled to china for an official visit. even as beijing called for restraint. >> we think the current situation in the region is complicated and sensitive. china has attached great importance to it. we oppose the use of military force and believe any country's sovereignty should be respected. >> brown: the weekend strikes came as the u.s. and the international community wrestle with what to do about possible chemical weapons used by the assad regime. a leading member of the u.n. commission investigating the issue said sunday there is evidence that syrian rebels have used sarin gas. the full commission said today it has reached no conclusions on the issue. and at the white house, press secretary jay carney cast doubt on the claims. >> we find it incredible, not credible, that the opposition has used chemical weapons. obviously that's a matter that's under investigation, but, you

know, we that i in any use of chemical weapons in syria is almost certain to have been done by the assad regime. but any use would be a red line crossed. >> brown: all of this as the "new york times" reported the u.s., britain and france have been secretly discussing the use of air strikes in syria. to some, including arizona republican senator john mccain, the weekend's developments suggested syrian defenses would not be much of an obstacle. >> in fact is we are capable of taking out their air on the ground with cruise missiles, cratering their runways. to allege that the united states of america can't do that means we've wasted a hell of a lot of tax payers dollars. >> brown: now it is unclear what happens next. the israelis deployed iron dome rocket batteries to the north of the country in case the syrians try to retaliate. but a top israeli commander played down the possibility saying there are no winds of

war. for more, we're joined by: michele dunne, director of the atlantic council's center for the middle east. she previously served in the state department and the national security council staff. and steve clemons, who writes on foreign affairs as editor-at- large at the "atlantic" magazine. mish dunn, let's start with you. what is behind israel's strikes into syria? what are they after. >> the israeli strikes intended to eliminate missiles that were shipped from iran to hezbollah to be put into lebanon because these missiles would have brought about a qualitative change in hezbollah's capability, particularly they have much more precise targeting ability than the missiles that hezbollah currently has in lebanon, and they also can carry a bigger payload. so do greater damage inside israel if they were used. >> you see it as a fairly narrow or limited project or effort? >> yes. this is the second time that israel has done this. israel carried out an air strike

previously against some other missiles that were on their way to hezbollah. this, of course, though was a larger attack. it was inside damascus and the damascus area. it caused significant casualties, more than 40 syrian soldiers killed. and i also think there's a broader message that israel is send. it has a specific objective. but i think also to send the message to iran that israel is serious about enforcing its red lines. >> brown: steve clemons, what do you see going on here specifically this weekend with israel? >> well, i think michelle dunn characterized it absolutely correctly. israel has shown substantial restraint through this period of civil strife and conflict inside syria, and saw that it... there may be substantial missiles being transferred to hezbollah. and they took action to stop it. what's interesting to me and i think disconcerting is we're beginning to see the blurring of state lines and the potential for a broadening of the war. even though israel may not want

that -- and i think that israel has tried to be surgical and to remain calm -- broadly we have to begin asking what does assad want and what is he threatening? to some degree whether it's turkey, lebanon, other players, broadening the conflict is a card that he may be beginning to play. i think that's something we should be concerned about in washington. >> brown: where do you see that? where do you see that blurring of the lines? >> well, we see it in the cross-border military conflict in some areas of turkey. we've seen it as you've begun to watch the saudi, the qatarees and the emirates begin to worry about what may be coming after the regime. they are also calling and advising and trying to interact with people inside the syrian state government, the bureaucracy, they're worried about the internal dimensions of, you know, a somewhat extreme islamist takeover inside the

country. we have a lot of players in the neighborhood who are beginning to become much more involved and engaged. one of the things assad has been promising in much of his rhetoric is to be aware that could become much more complicated. you have three million kurds inside syria who find common cause with kurds not only in iran and kurdistan but also in turkey. there's a lot of dimensions to this conflict that don't stay neatly within the borders of syria at all and i think israel's attack while sensible and important for israel is a manifestation of a potential broadening of the conflict regionally. >> brown: let me ask you, michelle dunn, is israel, do you think, calculating that it can do this and not bring on retall indication or further spillover effort? do you think that is possible or is that what we may see now? >> well, first of all, i agree with steve that this conflict is metastasizing. it is spreading to other states in the region. i don't think that israel wants that to happen. i do think they were taking what they thought was an opportunity.

they had obviously had through some method spotted these missiles and thought this is their opportunity to get rid of these missiles before they get into lebanon. they do seem to be calculating. we saw press leaks that they were calculating that both the syrian government and hezbollah are too heavily occupied to really focus on retaliating against israel and that iran also probably does not want to take on israel at this point. >> brown: by the way, do we know whether there are consulting with the u.s.... does the u.s. know ahead of time when israel does something like this? do we know? >> i don't know exactly whether they did or not. i would be surprised if there had not been some advanced notification to the united states. i don't know how much time time and probably the israelis would have already decided that they were going to do this, not so much asking the u.s. permission as informing the u.s. that they were going to do it. that's just a guess. >> brown: steve clemons, in what

ways might all this affect the u.s. position here? we saw in our set-up piece, for example, senator mccain saying, well, look -- and others have said this -- this shows at least that the syrian air defense can be breached fairly easily. >> well, i think there are two sides of of another line. there are some like senator mccain and former senator lieberman, lindsey graham and others who are calling for a much more row best involvement of the u.s. with no fly zones and a kind of engagement somewhat similar and more robust as we saw in libya. there are others who are worried that either the shipment of heavy arms, deeper engagement in this conflict, that you don't have the same tipping point opportunities that the u.s. had in libya to completely change the "on the ground" realities and thus there's a worry that this could be a slippery slope to a much deeper kind of engagement with heavy costs to the united states. in my sense what barack obama would like to see and is not

getting as an option is a way to have a small footprint intervention that changed this. so i think that the interesting thing is to watch the caution with which israel has been behaving, the surgical way in which it took out these weapons. i imagine that's exactly the same kind of thing that the united states would like to do with securing the chemical weapons in one way or another and not turning this into an effort against the broader assad regime and making the u.s. as a principal player inside syria's civil war. so i think what's interesting about mccain and others is that they'd like to see these initiatives around chemical weapons lead to a broader occasion to topple assad. i think that the white house is positioning itself, if it does take action, to be only as narrowly focused on the chemical weapons and not really to become more deeply engaged in trying to topple the assad regime. >> brown: of course the question, michelle dunn, is that possible? can the u.s. stay that focused on the chemical weapons?

and a lot of talk about the president having put himself in something of a box with his red line language. >> no, jeff, i don't think that's possible. >> brown: you don't? no, because from what i understand to actually secure the chemical weapons on the ground is something that would take more than 10,000 troops and it's not something that can be done remotely. now what the united states could do remotely, you've heard senator mccain speak of cruise missiles and so forth, is perhaps ground the syrian air force so make it more difficult for chemical weapons to be delivered by aircraft. but that doesn't secure the chemical weapons themselves. that would have to be done either by the syrian rebels who are there on the ground, perhaps after the overthrow of the al assad regime or by some fairly large scale foreign intervention. so i think that the administration, the u.s. administration is now seeing that the costs of inaction have started to outweigh the costs of action. and i think they're looking at a

variety of options including arming the rebels, including doing something to ground the air force. there is already a forward headquarters of the u.s. central command in jordan being positioned to take action of one kind or another. >> brown: all right. michelle dunn and steve clemons, thanks you both very you. >> thanks, jeff. you. >> suarezz: online, you can find more analysis of israel's motivations, and a timeline of major developments in syria. and still to come on the newshour, the debate over disclosing corporations' political donations; a focus on problem-solving to inspire a deeper way of learning; the do- it-yourself way to make a gun; and the fracking fight in poland. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: new trouble erupted in iraq today, as bomb blasts in and around baghdad killed at least ten people. in one attack, two car bombs blew up in a street in the suburb of husseinya. another went off outside a restaurant at lunchtime.

violence has spiked in iraq following a security crackdown on a sunni camp last month. in afghanistan, the weekend marked one of the deadliest in the last year for u.s. troops. seven were killed in attacks on saturday. five died in a roadside bomb in the south, and two others were killed when a soldier with the afghan national army turned his weapon on u.s. soldiers. about a week ago the taliban announced its new spring offensive, including an emphasis on "insider attacks." authorities in bangladesh banned new rallies as clashes between police and hard-line islamists spread. at least 20 people were killed. overnight, protesters blocked roads with burning tires, demanding that blasphemy against islam be outlawed. police fired rubber bullets and beat some protesters in the streets. meanwhile, the death toll in the collapse of a garment factory rose to 675. crews continued digging in the ruins of the building. a friend of the boston bombing suspect has been released from federal custody.

robel phillipos was charged last week with lying to investigators about visiting dzhokhar tsarnaev's dorm room after the bombings. he'll remain confined to his home until his trial. meanwhile, the question of what happens to the remains of tamerlan tsarnaev-- the other bombing suspect-- remains unresolved. so far, no place in massachusetts will accept the body for burial. the senate moved today to let states charge sales tax for purchases made over the internet. currently, sales tax applies only when the online company has an actual store or office located in a given state. retailers have lobbied in favor of the bill, but it's expected to face opposition in the house. on wall street, stocks edged up and down. the dow jones industrial average lost five points to close below 14,969. the nasdaq rose 14 points to close near 3393. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to ray. >> suarez: we turn to the intersection of business and politics.

the supreme court's 2010 citizens united decision wiped away limits on corporate and labor union campaign spending. corporations do not have to disclose donors for "issue" campaigns, but the securities and exchange commission may change that rule. a group of law professors has asked the s.e.c. to adopt a rule requiring public companies to disclose money donated for politics to shareholders. so far, their petition has garnered over 500,000 comments, more than any in the agency's history, and s.e.c. officials have indicated they will consider the proposal. what is each side arguing? we're joined by robert j. jackson, jr., a columbia university law school professor who helped write the original petition. and paul atkins, a former s.e.c. commissioner. he's the chief executive of patomak global partners, a financial services consulting firm. today if acme company wants to use corporate funds to support a

specific issue around, let's say, election time, do the shareholders have to be told in anyway? >> well, i mean it depends on exactly what that is. corporations right now if they're giving to political campaigns, they have to disclose what they do through pacs or that sort of thing. if it's done through other sorts of groups, not necessarily something that depends on what the actual facts are there. >> suarez: professor jackson, what would your proposal to the s.e.c. require corporations to do? >> our proposal would require all public companies to tell their shareholders whether and how they have spent shareholder money on politics. in particular, the kinds of donations that are made to intermediaries such as the chamber of commerce and other large organizations that today exist largely for the purpose of conveying corporate money into politics. those kinds of donations would have to be disclose to the investors. the basic principle underlying

the petition is that this is investors' money. for that reason they should know how to corporation has gone about spending it. >> suarez: paul atkins, the shareholders if you want to bother to look at the annual report -- there's sometimes paging of type with tiny figures on it, but you're required to be told about matters facing the company routinely, executive compensation, audits, board members. why not tell them this? >> well, ray, what this comes down to, first of all, is as far as the s.e.c. goes is whether or not the information is material. that's what guides from supreme court cases and from f.c.c. rules and even from the statute that authorizes the s.e.c. to require disclosure it comes down to what's material. >> suarez: for the purposes of this conversation, what does material mean? >> for a shareholder to decide whether to buy, sell or hold that particular stock. and so whether it will change the total mix of information that the shareholder has. shareholders have been con

fridaconnecticut fronted with te questions through a lot of shareholder proposals time and again 100 some companies this year and last year as well. and over and over shareholders vote overwhelmingly against it. why? because it's not material. it doesn't really matter to them. this is not about disclosure. this is about special interests pushing to try to have information disclosed in public and then to use that information against corporate management and directors to try to get them not to engage in or not even talking before about politics or political campaigns but against... to try to have them not engage in political advocacy. >> suarez: professor jackson, apparently there's already a legal standard here. you heard paul atkins explain that these payments might not be material. what's your reply? >> two points about that i think are important. first is we have no way to know whether the spending is material in the way the commissioner has described because there's no disclosure of these payments. it's absolutely impossible for

anybody to know with certainty whether or not they're material enough in terms of financial significance to meet the standard he described. second and much more importantly, there are lots of ways in which information can be made material to investors. it can be material because of the amount. but they can also be material because of what they represent. and i would say that corporate spending on politics has significance that goes far beyond the bottom line of the corporation. that's why, for example, executive compensation is required to be disclosed even though it might not be material in terms of amount, shareholders have made clear that they care about this information and want to have i o. for the same reason there's no real basis for concluding that shareholders of corporate spending on politics is likely not to be material. to the contrary i think shareholders have good reason to care about it. the evidence shows that they do. >> suarez: how can you judge materiality if the access is opaque, if you can't see the figure. >> well, fir of all if it's material to any particular

company the rules already require that that amount be disclosed. in fact, in the actual rules that govern how the financial statements are made up, it even would say that it be broken out if it's a material amount in the context of that particular corporation. and to professor jackson's point even if you take all of the money that's given to these c-4 sorts of associations and it comes to how many other hundreds of millions of dollars, even if it all comes from corporations and not from labor unions and other things like that, it would still be immaterial in the whole context of all public company spending in the united states. >> suarez: but is materiality an objective standard? >> yes, it is. suarez: or is there subjectivity to it if i'm a shareholder and money that's not going into capital investment, that's not going into paying me dividend, is going into furthering political aims that i

may support or i may detest? >> well, about 30 years or so ago, thurgood marshall wrote an opinion for the supreme court in which he basically set the seminal test for materiality. it is what a reasonable shareholder would judge to be important for in judging the total mix of information available to him or her to decide whether or not to buy, sell or hold that particular company's stock. so it is an objective test in the way the law is done. so the other thing with respect to executive compensation and other sorts of disclosure like that the professor cited are all things that have to do... they have been long in the s.e.c.'s history of disclosure that deal with the board and things like that. >> suarez: professor jackson, can your petition survive that test? involving whether or not these amounts are material? >> absolutely it can.

with all due respect to the commissioner, the executive compensation rules that require disclosure of relatively small amounts for large public companies were only really expanded in 1992, many decades after thurgood marshall wrote the opinion he's describing. the fact is the s.e.c. has plenary discretion to determine what is material. what they said very consistently over the years with respect to executive compensation, with respect to decisions where directors have a financial interest in the transaction, with respect to disclosures about the director's oversight of risk, all of these disclosures have been held by the s.e.c. to be material because it's clear that investors are interested in this information and in the case of political spending, it could not be more clear that investors want this information. the shareholder proposals requesting that companies publicly disclose their spending on politics is by far the most common corporate governance proposal in public corporations today. i'll tell you that the executive compensation rules that were expanded in 1992 when the s.e.c. did that, they gave as a reason

shareholder interests and the shareholder interest in this subject are... because these amounts have suppressive significance that have nothing to do with the bottom line and because it would be fully consistent with the s.e.c.'s precedent i think it's very clear that the materiality standard provides no bar at all to the s.e.c. adopting these rules. >> suarez: we'll watch the evolution of this issue. thank you both. >> thank you very much. >> brown: next, how one public school in new england is taking a different approach to teaching, immersing students in an unusually comprehensive science curriculum that emphasizes problem-solving. special correspondent john tulenko of learning matters, which produces education stories for the newshour, has the story. >> reporter: on a crisp fall morning last october, king middle school in portland, maine, invited eighth-graders to what it calls a kickoff, the

unveiling of an in-depth project that would be at the center of nearly all the students courses for the next four months. >> i direct your attention to this slide. this is called earth at night. >> reporter: science teacher peter hill set the stage. >> there are certain parts of the world that use a ton of energy. along with that, 25% of the world's population doesn't have electricity at all. but enough solar energy hits the earth every hour to supply the entire world's energy needs for a year. so we need to design tools that can capture all that sunlight that's hitting earth. or capture all that wind power that's sitting out on the gulf of maine. we need to-- wait for it-- revolt. >> reporter: hill handed the students an ambitious assignment to fulfill by the end of the project. >> you're going to create a

device that captures natural energy and transforms it into something that's useful for people in some part of the world. >> i was like, i can't do that. >> reporter: taking all this in was liva pierce. >> that's way too much. i don't know the first thing about electricity. i don't know the first thing about windmills. i am totally going to fail. >> i was like, there's no way that's going to happen. first of all, i can't build anything and i've never handled a screwdriver in my entire life or an electric drill-- like, this isn't going to work. >> so i want you to think about the big picture here. >> reporter: projects that take students into uncharted territory are at the heart of teaching and learning at king. though it's a regular public school, this approach, called expeditionary learning, is unusual, but could be just the kind of education students need in a rapidly changing world. this expedition began with a design challenge. >> we're building robots that

are made to collect resources that are ping-pong balls. >> reporter: nat youngrin and his classmates were building their robots from kits that allow for an almost infinite number of possibilities. >> you can do whatever you want to make them do this, but they have to go out, get ping-pong balls, and bring them back. i made mine completely sound- controlled, and when you clap, you can control it to turn and move back to your base. >> this one has to be much longer. >> reporter: working in teams, students spent four weeks building their robots in a class called tech-ed. gus goodwin is the teacher. > this kind of really hones in on engineering. >> reporter: what is the design process? >> they have to program a robot, build it, tinker with it, and get it to work. >> reporter: liva pierce, who at the kickoff had feared failing, seemed to embrace robotics. >> reporter: we made this wide thing that, when it goes

forward, it will catch the balls. it's pretty hard. >> let's go, chipmunks! let's go! >> reporter: just before thanksgiving, students put their creations to the test at a school competition dubbed "robo- wars." nat youngrin's robot started well enough-- and stalled. the room was too noisy for its sound controls. >> oh, my god! >> reporter: as for liva pierce... they finished second. the objective for all the students was that this activity would somehow bring them closer to designing an energy generating device of their own. >> the robot competition was really successful. kids are really, i think, they've internalized the design process. they know it's an ongoing process. they know they need to engineer their designs and constantly revise and get feedback.

and so we're on our way. >> reporter: by early december, students were on to the second leg of their journey: learning the science and social issues that would be at the heart of their invention. and the path teachers choose to take students there, an eight- week-long interdisciplinary study of wind power. science teacher peter hill: >> we started with the wind turbine. how do these things work? so we took apart a motor and we said, well, there's magnets and wires in here. how do magnets and wires interact to generate electricity? >> reporter: to make the learning go deeper, in tech-ed class students built working model wind turbines. >> the criteria for this project is that they have to build a wind turbine that is stable and sturdy. it has to generate at least one volt of electricity, and the other piece is that we want it to be creative, outrageous, ingenious, and inspirational.

>> reporter: the politics of wind power was the subject in social studies. >> the point is to find a place where it would be good or possible to have a wind turbine, to see if there's anything there, like what the environmental impacts would be if there's a bunch of wind turbines in the area. >> you get those discussions around what is a sense of place, and what is scenic beauty, and how do you alleviate that issue? >> reporter: next, mark gervais' students will argue for their turbine in a persuasive essay addressed to local officials. but for their life-improving invention, students would have to learn about faraway places. in english class, they read "the boy who harnessed the wind," the autobiography of william kamkwamba of malawi, africa. >> he managed to build a wind turbine, power his house, get all this stuff that he wouldn't

have had if he hadn't tried, and he did it with, like, a book and some trash. >> and he went through this awful famine, and it was really shocking to me that he could go through all that and still have hope. >> that was a really big theme in the book-- that if you try and don't stop no matter what's in the way, you'll eventually get there. >> reporter: inspired by the book, students like liva pierce pushed ahead with their own model wind turbines. >> i had a lot of struggles with my turbine. and i said, "you know what? i'm going to make this generate more than a volt." so i made a whole new set of blades. but then i heard about other people, and it was like oh, he's getting six volts! so i was like argh, i've got to get more than that! >> reporter: after eight weeks and three new sets of blades, liva and her classmates wind turbines were finally ready. and king middle school staged another competition. >> the more i got into it, the more i just couldn't stop. i just wanted to keep going and making it better and better and better.

i was steadily increasing. >> reporter: each turbine's electrical output was captured by a computer. livas topped out at 5.9 volts. >> in the team competition... >> reporter: and when the final tallies were announced... >> give it up for the winners: lobsters! >> reporter: ...her team finished first. by february, students had reached the final stage of the project: creating an energy- generating device that improves people's lives. >> as a team of teachers, we brainstormed what are ten things that really need to get solved in the world? we came up with purify water, light a room at night, charge a cell phone. stuff like that just to kind of get kids rolling, just give them a little push to get the creative juices flowing. >> reporter: the assignment was to create a technical drawing. emma schwartz designed a light. >> i call it the rub-a-dub scrub. it's a sponge that generates

light-- which you might think, oh, my god, everyone is going to get electrocuted. but no, i'm going to make sure no one gets electrocuted. as you can see, there's a little dome with lights at the top. there are scrubbers on the bottom. the scrubbers are attached to magnets, which spin around wires. when you rotate it on dishes the scrubbers rotate, that creates the electrons to flow and that generates electricity. >> reporter: liva pierce created a crank flashlight. >> it will have uvb, uvc, and regular light. uvc kills bacteria in water, so >> reporter: her uvb light in supposed to draw insects away from people. >> it will have "off," "regular," "water," "bugs." and i'm calling it the eco bright. >> reporter: for the final event of the project, parents were invited in to hear all about the students' inventions. >> the rub-a-dub scrub takes the usually wasted rotational kinetic energy of washing dishes.

>> this is, like, live showing what you're learning to other people, which kind of gives you something more back, i think. >> and you have to be clear and concise and articulate about what you're saying. i think that giving presentations is so important, because it really arms you with skills that you'll need later in life. >> just think if washing dishes could be fun. >> reporter: like emma's invention, the students' creations will go no farther than the drawing board. what's more, as they move on to new subjects and new grades, they may forget the particulars of amps and electrons. but some things they will remember. >> through this expedition, i have learned how to communicate with other people to make something happen. and i think that's what changed me most. >> before this expedition, i kind of always thought of myself as i'm good at writing and i'm good at reading, and that's what i'm good at. >> this expedition has completed changed my idea of science. science is doing and science is

building, and science is creating. >> reporter: what makes this school a success? it's not because of any charter status: it's a regular public school. it's not because it caters to some students over others: it's diverse with open admission. the secret, as we saw it, was relevance. >> usually in school you learn about things that are happening in the world that are bad. in social studies, you might learn about an earthquake. but i feel that schools shouldn't just be about learning about problems. i think they should be about solving them. because if you're not learning about how to solve problems, then what will you do when you're out of school? >> reporter: the expeditionary learning approach is growing and can be found in 161 schools nationwide. brown: there's one for all of you who write in asking for positive stories in our world.

tomorrow, we'll have another look at new ways to engage students in science, and promote problem solving, when spencer michels reports on the opening of the exploratorium in san francisco. >> suyarez: now to a new wrinkle in the gun debate tied to ever- speeding advances in technology. for the first time this weekend, a plastic gun created by a 3-d printer successfully fired a real bullet. that success has stirred up many questions and concerns about its potential impact. the world's first fully functioning 3d printable handgun is the brain child of cody wilson, a university of texas law student. dubbed the liberator, it's fashioned from 15 plastic parts created on an $8,000 three-dimensional printer. the technology is already commonly used in various

industries. a printer lays down melted polymer filaments layer by layer according to precise digital blueprints to form solid plastic objects. that means the liberator would be undetectable to airport security screeners and therefore illegal. the only metal in the gun is the common household nail used as a firing pin and a six-ounce piece of metal added to ensure the weapon is detectable to comply with current law. but there are other questions. wilson's nonprofit gunned advocate group, defense distributed, is publishing the design files online so anyone in the world can download the blueprints and print a liberator. all of this without a background check or any serial number. the group is also developing 3d printable components for high-capacity automatic weapons. it posted video of test firings earlier this year.

more about this technology, the man behind the project and the questions this all raises from andy greenburg of forbes. he's been covering this story and was in austin when cody wilson first tested the gun. andy, now that this threshold has been crossed and we know it can be done, i guess the first question is whether it's hard for regular people to do. >> i think it is actually pretty difficult for now. the machine that cody wilson and his cohorts used was an $8,000 used very high tech 3d printer. so this isn't the kind of $2,000 the kind of apple tool of 3d printers that people are getting excited about today. this is a more industrial machine. the story is about the future. it's only going to be a couple of years before what wilson is doing is affordable for regular people. >> suarez: you were there. you watched it being used. it didn't blow up in his hand or shatter into plastic shards. is this a sturdy, reliable,

reusable firearm or one and done kind of weapon? >> it actually does seem to be fairly durable. i've watched videos of a 3d printed barrel being fired ten times without cracking. i did see cody wilson fire his liberator handgun twice. once with a remote trigger pull with the string and once by hand. it didn't explode or crack those times either. but it's unclear whether this is, you know, a durable weapon. i think the key thing to remember though is that it has a barrel that can b swapped out. you can print a new barrel in a couple of hours. he showed me he had kind of a case full of barrels. it would be really simple to print out four or five of these and have them ready to go. even if the barrel of this homemade weapon is deformed and doesn't work, you can always have another one ready. that's part of the danger of this gun. >> suarez: if you remember the last big round of speculation about plastic weapons it really focused a lot on their

undetectability in magnet-meters and other kinds of screeners. this time it's the "do it yourself at home" aspect that's getting more attention. isn't it? >> i think that that's warranted. the fact that steve israel and chuck sheumer, these two congressman are focused on the undetectability of the weapon i think kind of misses the point. they're trying to renew the undetectable firearms act to prevent this. it's not the fact that this gun is plastic and can't be detected by a metal detector that makes it dangerous. it's the fact that anyone can create it in the privacy of their guards with a couple of clicks and some software and a download from their internet. he's focused as the name of his group implies on the distributed nature of this weapon, the fact that it circumvents gun control, not that it circumvents metal detectors. >> suarez: what exactly is his motivation? you touched on it briefly? does he want more people to have guns? is his problem really with the

attempt to know who has them and who doesn't? where does he come from? >> i think that cody would be happy to see more guns in americans' hands. but his ultimate goal, i believe, and he told me is that the dissolution of the u.s. government and governments around the world. he's an anarchist and a radical libertarian. i think he sees this exercise of making a gun printable as kind of a demonstration of ways that the technology can circumvent the law, can circumvent to make the government irrelevant until it kind of disappears or at least he wants to carve out a kind of space where technology prevents the states' hands from controlling what people do. i think he's on his way with this gun. >> suarez: from what you've seen, the fact that it's makeable by the user, it's got no serial number, it's got no known signature to law enforcement, no background check necessary, is he living out his dream just by making this

liberator? >> i think he's on his way. just a couple of months ago defense distributed, this group, was created on creating magazines, ammunition magazines which are a box with a spring inside or components of rifles. now they've created an entirely 3d printed gun. we only know... they can only speculate what they'll do next. i think that this gun is going to become more resilient, more usable over time and more easily acceptable by regular people with just a click and a couple of swipes of a mouse. >> suarez: he's inserted a piece of metal to make it comply with current law. but isn't that something of a fig leaf? does this kind of weapon, minus that piece of metal which becomes optional if you're making it at home, make gun laws obsolete? >> well, cody is very clever. he's a law student at the university of texas. his strategy has been what he calls overcompliance. he wants to do what he's doing in an absolutely legal way and yet enable people to do illegal

things. he's kind of untouchable and his strategy has been to insert a chunk of steel into the prototype. that's the one he's been testing but in fact if you print it at home there's no guarantee or there's no need for you to put that metal in. it serves no purpose. there is a steel nail in the gun but you can buy that at any hardware store. there's this other chunk of the six-ounce chunk of metal that he inserred to make it comply with the undetectable firearms act. that's a fig leaf. anyone who prints it at omahas no requirements to include that metal in the gun and render it detectable by metal detectors. >> suarez: andy greenburg of forbes magazine, thanks for joining us. >> thank you very much. >> brown: finally tonight, we turn to poland, where there's a familiar controversy surrounding new energy exploration. our story is part of a

collaboration with the pulitzer center on crisis reporting, and comes from special correspondent steve sapienza. reporter: northern poland, a rustic region of fresh water lakes, forests and villages and thousands of of feet below the surface a potential fortune in natural gas trapped in shell rock. energy companies are already drilling here. using hydraulic fracturing or fracking, controversial method of gas extraction imported from the united states. >> we believe that there's the capacity technologically to extract that gas in a way that is entirely safe. what we want to do is to be able to share our expertise and technology with poland. >> reporter: since 2010 a u.s. state department initiative has quietly promoted the development of shale gas resources in countries like poland. exploration drilling sites like this one offer the promise of a shale gas boom in poland.

but many residents who live near the drilling site feel that the gas companies and their government have left them out of the decisions that could kreushly impact their way of life. >> we live in a small rural community. behind us there is a new investment. a gas rig. >> reporter: last june the unexpected arrival of drilling operators sense local residents scrambling for information. >> we discovered what it was when some workers who weren't local started building an access road. there was no information provided to us by local authorities. >> reporter: about 30 energy companies, both state-owned and international, are operating in poland. while the majority of poles support shale gas exploration residents who live near the drilling site say they want it safely extracted. >> we are not against shale gas but we want to enforce that the company's compliance with our laws and to ensure that the most important thing, the water and the environment, are preserved. we are going to be here long after the company is gone.

>> reporter: hydraulic fracturing was developed in the united states. the process involves injecting millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals deep underground to fracture the shale rock and release the gas. fracking is credited with sparking a u.s. energy boom creating jobs and lowering energy prices. yet the process hassles raised questions about water contamination and air pollution that are under investigation by the environmental protection agency. in europe, france and bulgaria have banned fracking due to environmental concerns. the polish government recently eased drilling regulations. its lacking on shale gas to boost poland's economy, reduce dependence on russian gas imports and cut energy prices. so far early exploration efforts in northern poland have been met with resistance and suspicion by locals. last august, a gas company subcontractor visited a man seeking permission to survey for shale gas on his 340-year-old family farm.

>> he left some papers with me to sign. the top one was a blank form. but i looked at the one underneath which had a handwritten note on it. oral permission granted. >> reporter: he soon discovered his neighbors had signed the papers claiming they were promised free gas and oil. >> i get grants as an organic former from the e.u. how is it possible for someone to drill with gas on land that had been certified as organic and dead iblghted for organic farming? >> worried the family farm was hanging in the balance he took his frustrations public. >> i got this idea to use a wall of my barn to protest against shale gas exploration in our area. i have lost faith in self-governance on all levels whether it's the county, county councils or the mayors. there's no point in voting because nothing has changed since the communist era. >> reporter: in its quest for shale gas poland hopes to emulate the u.s. model but there are big differences, says energy

expert john banks of the brookings institution. >> you have some very significant infrastructure constraints to taking advantage of shale gas in a region such as poland. you also have differences where regard to the mineral rights. >> reporter: u.s. land owners own the rights to the gas and oil below their land. not so in poland where the state owns everything 50 centimeters and below. >> if you don't own the mineral rights then you don't have as much skin in the game. therefore you might be more incline to not promote or support shale gas development. >> reporter: the gas drilling is 300 meters from this farmer's field. >> we live in an elevated area. the soil is very weak and permeable. we often experience droughts. >> reporter: fracking typically uses between 5 million gallons of water per well. >> i suspect we'll have a very serious problem. i keep looking at this horrible rig and wonder it will pose a threat to us.

we would like to see assurances from the government that we are going to be compensated in case of some ecological disaster that will impact our livelihoods. >> reporter: the government says should a drilling accident occur, local residents have the right to sue the drilling company. >> the farmer has the ability to defend his rights in the court. sometimes it will find its way to court. but that's democracy, right. >> reporter: the polish government sees a future where shale gas revenues fill state and local cofers and polish consumers have lower energy bills. >> the polish economy will make money by reducing gas prices thanks to national production. >> reporter: polish residents have seen little direct benefit from the drilling rigs in their midst. >> we are very skeptical about any potential benefits to our community. they promised employment, but everybody realizes that only expert workers with special training can be employed here.

>> reporter: gas companies have just started to explore concessions that cover nearly one third of poland's territory. this all but guarantees more polish citizens will come into contact with gas exploration efforts in the years to come. in poland you're talking about a much more densely populated area as opposed to, say, some of the basins in the western part of the united states. i think you will find that having a big impact on the progress of shale gas production. >> we don't have the country so long history within the shale gas operation and even exploration. so this part of the process should be treated with extreme caution. >> reporter: if exploration is to pof forward, drilling operators will need the support of local communities. says, the spokesperson for the shale gas drilling operators in poland. >> there are plenty of myths that are circulated among the local communities.

and the goal of the operators should be to dispel such myths and to give the real picture of how fracking works. that maybe the amount of chemicals used during the fracturing is not that significant. maybe the substances used during hydraulic fracturing are not that dangerous as some of the materials throughout the internet try to show. >> reporter: for now, the polish government and gas drillers face the challenge of pursuing valuable energy deep in the earth without fueling dissent above ground. >> brown: that report was a collaboration with the pulitzer center on crisis >> brown: that report was a collaboration with the pulitzer center on crisis reporting and calkins media. you'll find a link to their special report on this issue on our web site. >> suarez: again, the major developments of the day. israel sought to play down tensions with syria after a weekend of air strikes around damascus.

the syrians threatened retaliation. and the u.s. senate moved to let states charge sales tax for purchases made online. the measure faces uncertain prospects in the house. >> brown: online, how a young detroiter is tackling a serious issue in her city and beyond. hari sreenivasan tells us more. >> sreenivasan: armed with only a few sewing machines, 23-year- old veronika scott set out to help the homeless in her community. today, her business employs 10 formerly homeless women who make coats that also double as a sleeping bag. read more about her in our social entrepreneurship series. and for a primer on tomorrow's special house election in south carolina, political editor christina bellantoni chatted with jon ward of the huffington post. watch that conversation in the rundown. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org.

reporting tell us how watergate impacted your life or changed the way you saw government or the media. call our oral history hot line at 202-599-4pbs or go to our home page for details on how to leave your message. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. ray? >> suarez: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at the impact of across-the-board budget cuts around the country. i'm ray suarez. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thanks for joining us. good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> more than two years ago, the people of b.p. made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we shared what we've learned so that we can all produce energy more safely. b.p. is also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs

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