It can be easy to get discouraged these days. Everywhere we look, there are signs of a struggling planet and, often, it’s difficult to see a clear path to an effectual response. 2022 may well eclipse recent years as the hottest on record. Rainfall has alternated between being absent or violent in Pennsylvania, one of
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There are two letters from readers sitting on my desk, each one tugging at me, competing for my mood and mindset. I may be an optimist, but I’ll start with the more negative of the two. It comes from a reader in Oreland, a response to editor’s notes I had written about the ill-conceived idea
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Some people call me a "scrapper.” Some people call me a "garbage picker.” I call myself “Philly Green Man, Environmental Superhero.”It’s hard to say exactly where it began. I had what people would consider a respectable job, teaching architecture for nine years with some of the greatest students in Dobbins High School history. But even
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It wasn’t long ago that a budding environmentalist had only a handful of choices in higher education. But about a decade ago, this all began to change. As sustainability became a major cultural watchword, many students—some new to academia, some returning after losing jobs—were searching for a modern kind of major, and the stage was
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There was little public fanfare when Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell’s bill establishing new parking regulations in the Mantua section of West Philadelphia passed, easily, in City Hall.As any Philadelphian will tell you, parking is perhaps the most contentious issue in the entire city—and Blackwell has often acted as the commander-in-chief of parking wars, most recently fighting
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Someday the row of young elm trees will transform this sunbaked stretch of Delaware Avenue, but first they have to survive the next couple years. To the west is the Northeast Water Pollution Control Plant. To the east is a Sanitation Convenience Center (where you can drop off hard-to-dispose-of items like tires and mattresses) and
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As a preschool teacher at Moonstone in South Philadelphia, Kate Leibrand was always thinking of new, creative lessons to do with her students. After mastering the art of papier-mâché, Play-Doh making, and the always-popular slime, she attempted to make chalk with her class. It was a disaster.“Between inaccurate measuring and drying times, we were left
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"Subversive cards and other awesome sh*t,” read artist Katie Novak’s business card at the Go West Craft Fest at The Woodlands Cemetery, 4000 Woodland Avenue, a gathering with the liveliness of a Bruegel painting, splashed with light and laughter and layered with the scent of organic edibles and spring buds, against a backdrop of tombstones.
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After watching 2016’s Hidden Figures, a movie that documents the contributions made by three brilliant African-American women to the space race, then-10-year-old Cordelia Dunston decided that she wanted to be an engineer. Her father, who works on Drexel’s campus, heard about a program called TechShopz, managed by the nonprofit TechGirlz, and led by Drexel’s chapter
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The Department of Homeland Security’s “zero tolerance policy” for undocumented immigrants crossing into the United States has caused a major uproar around the country. The protests intensified as images of children being held in cages started to circulate on social media. People across the nation could not believe that our country would do such horrible
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On a tree-lined street in West Mount Airy, solar panel installer Thomas Glenn confesses to a less than green past.“I was a litter bug,” Glenn, who was born and raised in Kensington, says. “I’d get a bag of chips, throw the wrapper on the ground, get some Kandy Kakes, throw those on the ground. I
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