Philadelphia high school student Seth Brown is frank about it: He started skipping lunch more and more this past year. “The rate has increased this year,” says the 18-year-old rising senior at West Philadelphia’s Parkway West High School, “because my English class is above the kitchen.”
MoreLast may, 500 exhibitors and 24,000 visitors descended upon Philadelphia for Lightfair, the annual international trade show for the $30 billion lighting industry. The hot topic? Which new energy-efficient lighting technology will keep our homes bright once 2007’s Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) takes effect in 2012. It’s a race to win the hearts
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Fear that cooler temps and shorter days will put an end to your garden-fresh produce? Fear no more, my friends, fear no more. The time is ripe for an office garden.
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A scene from the August Night Market in Mount Airy (Photo by R. Kennedy for GPTMC)All has been quiet on the Griddle lately, but we’re starting things up again with a reminder about a Philly favorite—the Night Market! If the Food Trust’s epic street food festival wasn’t already GRID’s culinary nirvana, it definitely is now.
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Scott Kelly, Re:Vision co-founder, steps away from the conference table in the firm’s Manayunk office and explains how they utilized the available light to create a comfortable environment. “There is very little daylight coming in through here,” he says as he stands near the north-facing window. There’s just a faint shadow behind him despite it
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Peeking out between the colonial brick buildings on South 5th Street, a 52-foot, ribcage-like structure is a stranger amidst the relics of Old City. Neon orange, green and blue plastic panels, as well as plant life, stick out from all angles. The structure is a greenhouse and part of “The Greenhouse Projects,” a special exhibit at the American
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Everyone knows what a sparrow is, right? Those ubiquitous little birds that compete with the pigeons for crumbs in front of park benches across Philadelphia? Well, they are and they aren’t. Most of them, Eurasian house sparrows, don’t belong here. They’re completely different birds in a completely different family than our native sparrows, except that
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October’s waning days and crisp evenings provide welcome relief from the summer’s brutal heat, but it’s a bittersweet reward: The summer’s bounty is already nothing more than a bright delicious memory, and your garden is largely in hibernation. If your recall is anything like mine, though, it’s a great time to document your gardening triumphs
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Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World’s Greatest Wildlife Rescueby William StolzenburgBloomsbury (2011), $26
For city dwellers, rats are a nuisance and a health hazard. But for isolated island species, rats are a death sentence, as William Stolzenburg demonstrates in his new book, Rat Island.
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The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Timeby David Sloan Wilson Little Brown (2011), $25.99
In David Sloan Wilson’s fifth book, the evolutionary biologist chronicles his attempt to use Darwin’s theory of evolution to improve the quality of life in his town of Binghamton, N.Y. It’s an ambitious goal, especially
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