In 2022, the Pennsylvania State Board of Education adopted new environmental literacy and sustainability standards. This is surely important — that all students in Pennsylvania learn about how to protect the environment and live sustainably — but how do we get them to take that education to heart? All the nature lovers out there know
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Even the most talented chefs began their food careers as eaters. Well before they were able to cook, they witnessed the magic of combining ingredients into delicious dishes, made for them by family, friends and other cooks. For some, need, desire — or even nostalgia — converts us from eaters to makers of the foods
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On my way out of the Cobbs Creek Environmental Education Center in October, I stopped to pick through the leaves around the American persimmon trees at the top of the driveway. It was a little early in the season, with plenty of fruit still on the tree, but I found a few little blobs of
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Stephanie Kearney has taught middle school science for 20 years. She uses the outdoors as a classroom, even when what’s outside is a schoolyard and the blocks of rowhouses around Penn Alexander School in West Philadelphia. Grid talked with Kearney to learn what it takes to bring the natural sciences to life for urban students.
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One warm October night at Temple University’s Liacouras Center, tall, tan rodeo athlete Au’Vion Horton burst out of a high wooden chute on the back of a one-ton bull. As the bull plunged, spun and kicked to throw off Horton, the hum of the crowd at the East Coast premiere of the 8 Seconds Rodeo
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In June 2026, Philadelphia’s current solid waste and recycling contracts are set to end, and a coalition of policymakers, industry professionals and advocates hope to use the contract expiration as a lever to fundamentally shift the City’s waste management practices toward circular approaches that include reuse, recycling, repair and composting — while addressing environmental justice
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On an afternoon in late October, students from Sayre High School were trickling into the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Center’s community room to take off their waders and to review what they had found in the creek. It was a scene you might expect at any environmental center, but a relatively fresh one now that
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A year ago, advocates of solar energy across Pennsylvania were flying high. Democratic state Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, whose South Philly district stretches from Pat’s King of Steaks to Lincoln Financial Field, had just pulled off a political Hail Mary: successfully shepherding a clean energy bill through the gridlocked State Capitol. Titled Solar for Schools, the
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For the first time in the utility’s history, Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) has agreed to hold community engagement meetings to discuss decarbonization. In a settlement agreement approved Oct. 9 by the Public Utility Commission (PUC), PGW agreed not only to a significantly lower rate hike than they initially proposed, but also to begin engaging in
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In June, the School District of Philadelphia’s long-running struggle to protect staff and students from asbestos in its aging buildings came to a head with federal criminal charges and an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to take care of the problem once and for all. The Justice Department alleges that the Philadelphia School District
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