Greensboro Daily Photo

L is for Light, Landfills, and Learning

Today, we bring you a Big Belly smart/solar trash can.*  The one photographed above is located on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in front of the student union. The can on the right, that opens like a mailbox, is the solar operated one. It compacts trash and sends an e-mail alerting the cleaning crew that it needs to be emptied. While the compactors cost about $5,000 per can, they can pay for themselves in labor costs saved by not having to be "checked" by humans. 

It is so wonderful that these cans are located on a university campus. Universities are a place to foment ideas. If we are going to transform education and prepare students to generate new ideas and products to enhance our quality of life, we have to surround them with innovation. Gone are the days when we teach for the future. Today’s expectations are that classrooms impact the present. It takes a blend of good teaching, student motivation, state of the art materials, and authentic, real-world projects to grow these great idea like the Big Belly solar trash compactor.  

We share this photo today as part of our ABC Wednesday, GO GREEN GREENSBORO series. L is such an important LETTER in the green world. L is for life;  living- with minimal environmental impact; lawns- and conserving water;  leaves- that Greensboro collects for mulch;  and land and landfills. Also, L is for LIGHT to compact trash and make it take up LESS space in the LANDFILLS. Finally, L is for the LEARNING that has to take place to make these innovative devices possible.

 

*Amanda Lehmert wrote an informative article about them for the News and Record on April 1st 2012 p. A1 & A6. Her informative article about the cans, located at the downtown greenway, sent us out in search of a smart trash can to photograph!

Mushrooms & Mosquitoes

Well, we start the week in Greensboro a little wet from the weekend....

With the rain came mushrooms and mosquitoes. The above white mushrooms snuck their way into our compost bed, which, at the moment, is a little heavy on coffee grounds and scraps from garden produce- not to mention soggy. Our compost pile is the perfect host for mushrooms that like a dark, warm, moist, nutrient-rich environment.

We are the first generation in our family incapable of conclusively determining whether or not mushrooms are edible. Those relatives from the "old country" would be mighty disappointed with the offspring of their offspring for not having mushroom identification skills. We do know that we have always been told to STAY AWAY from solid white mushrooms.

North Carolina has several biology and agricultural programs with mushroom experts, mycologists. To name a few, in North Carolina there is a lot of research and classification being conducted at Duke University (see here & here); NC State (see here) and, at Greensboro's very own NCA&T University (see here) do research and have active extension services. At NCA&T, Dr. Ormon S. Isikhuemhen specializes in mushroom biology and fungal biotechnology. NCA&T's School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences maintains a "how to get started" website for edible and medicinal mushroom farming in North Carolina. They work closely with farmers setting up mushrooms as a cash crop. How wonderful that a university works closely with the community to develop sustainable agriculture. See their great website here. Maybe we'll head back out and pick a mess and get them identified; that is, if we can brave the mosquitoes! We may get lucky and find some truffles!

Brown Thrasher

This brown thrasher has been hanging around our yard in Greensboro. We suspect that she has a nest near our compost bed among the dense brush. This spring, we've been lucky, our compost pile seems to have the perfect combination of green and brown material as it is FULL of earthworms. Brown thrashers are omnivorous and eat anything from insects and earthworms to berries and seeds, all of which are present in our yard; most of which are present in our compost pile.

Every year, we plant more edibles and now have at least ten blueberry bushes, lots of raspberries, two small gardens, and more.  We've also made a committment to avoid pesticides. Our efforts are paying off as, this year, we've seen a variety of birds and other wildlife. This is the first year that we recall seeing a thrasher. According to the literature, brown thrashers can make up to 3,000 distinct bird calls. That's quite a reperitoire. We hear the thrasher a lot and have gotten very close to it. The bird seems to be so tame.

What kind of birds to you see in your neighborhood?

Church and State

Today, we are standing in Commerce Place beside West Market Street United Methodist Church. Directly ahead, you can see the Guilford County Court House. Earlier in the week, we brought you a photo of the federal court house which is located on the same block as the above buildings. Lately, with the primary election only two days away, we've been thinking a great deal about the interface between religion and politics.

In spite of the fact that the very creation of The United States was brought about in an effort to keep church and state separate, it can be very hard to do so. If you reflect on your spirituality, how comfortable are you with people of different belief systems? How comfortable are you with efforts to legislate morality? Where do laws to keep people safe, and society orderly, begin and end? When do laws go too far?

Recently, we received a post of a family friend who said, not only did she lack respect for friends of a different political party, she no longer even wanted to be their friends. She sent "unfriend" requests. As a nation, have we reached a point where we can no longer be friendly and civil with people of different beliefs? Where is this dichotomy taking us? My beliefs or yours; all or none. Is their room for diplomacy? We hope so. We owe it to our children. Their seeing adults being civil to each other is the only hope that the future will be better than the present. 

Just a little something to ponder.............

Gateway Gardens and University Research Park

After nearly a decade in the planning, Gateway Gardens is a reality. It is located on 11 acres of land between East Lee and Florida Streets adjacent to Barber Park.  Greensboro Beautiful, the non-profit that brought Greensboro the Bog and Bicentennial Gardens and the Arboretum, brings us Gateway Gardens. They do so, in collaboration with Greensboro's Parks and Recreation Department, as well as with the help of many private citizens. The above entrance from the parking lot is a mere prelude to the colorful, child-friendly space that blends local artwork, especially sculpture, with beautiful flora and walking trails. There is an outdoor classroom as well an many places to sit along the way. We will feature other views on Greensboro Daily Photo this week.

If you look closely at the building in the center of this photo, you will see yet another exciting venture for Greensboro. NCA&T and UNCG, the two North Carolina state universities located in Greensboro, have entered into a joint venture to build Gateway University Research Park. Anticipated to open later this year, the 64 million dollar facility will house the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, one of North Carolina's most exciting 21st century initiatives. For sure, the school will attract students from around the world who are interested in pursuing Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in the nanotechnology fields. In the meantime, with the Gateway Gardens, Gateway University Research Park and Barber Park, East Greensboro will be quite an amazing GATEWAY to the Gate City. If you have about 9 minutes, we highly recommend you watch the video clip put together about the Gateway Gardens project (read/view here). If you are interested in the Gateway Research Park, read/view here. 

McIver Education Center

Today, we are at Charles D. McIver Education Center, located at 1401 Summit Avenue at the corner of Textile Drive. McIver Ecuation Center is part of the Guilford County School System and, according to their website, serves students from age 5-22 with moderate to several developmental delays, autism, and other educational needs. Our local system is just digging out from four snow days. Today, students, teachers, and staff, at McIver included, will be readjusting to the faster-paced, and more-structured schedule of being back in school.

In earlier years, the above facility was built as Proximity Public School for children of the local textile mill community of which Proximity Manufacturing Mill was a part. Proximity was the first mill of the Cone Brothers and, the school was in close proximity to the mill as the Cone family valued education.  According to local historian, Gayle Hicks Fripp, in her book GREENSBORO NEIGHBORHOODS, Volume II, this building was constructed in 1928 and the architect was Charles C. Hartman. As Frick points out, noteworthy is the brick and stone checker motif on the wings.

Also nearby is Proximity United Methodist Church. For sure, when Proximity was Proximity Public School, many students lived close enough to this neighborhood school that they could go home for lunch. Still chiseled on the header, at the center of the school, are the words, "PROXIMITY PUBLIC SCHOOL."

For Facebook users, Proximity School has started a community page, although it doesn't appear to have been discovered yet. If you attended Proximity Public School check the page out. This post is part of our 2011 Skywatch Friday series where we show a slice of the sky above Greensboro whether is vibrant blue, dull gray, or anything in between.

Footbridge to UNCG

 

Sunday's intense, fluffy clouds seemed to align perfectly with the footbridge that connects the School of Music with the rest of campus at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The 130,000 square foot music building is grand in every way: from its scale (pun intended)  to the performances offered therein, to the faculty, students, courses, summer programs, you name it. This footbridge is no exception as it makes walking to and from the dorms and other buildings on campus a pleasant experience. The alternative would be traipsing through hilly terrain underneath which can be quite wet and swamplike. This week, we'll feature an array of photos taken around and near this building. Stop back to see the building itself!

We wanted to save today's photo for our Skywatch Friday collection as clouds like these don't come along every day.  However, it is the first of the month and the theme for the community of 1,000+ City Daily Photo Blogs is PASSAGEWAYS, so we're sharing the photo with the CDP community. 

  Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

The Natural Science Center of Greensboro

The Natural Science Center of Greensboro, located at 4301 Lawndale Avenue, is a tremendous community resource. In addition to the engaging permanent exhibits and the zoo, the center continually offers special programs. The current traveling exhibit is, "Extreme Deep: Mission to the Abyss."  

In the photo above, you see three of the taxidermied animals on display in the hallway of the museum. Within the past year, the museum acquired a privately-owned, local collection. The collection is reminiscent of the efforts in the 19th century to provide specimens. The taxidermied animals were studied in an era when living, exotic, zoo animals were not widely available.  

If you haven't been to the Natural Science Center lately, and you live in Greensboro, you really must stop by and see how the place has transformed in the last few years!

Foucault Pendulum in Greensboro

A Foucault pendulum is used to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. In the above photo, we see the Foucault pendulum at the Natural Science Center in Greensboro. The Paris Observatory displayed the first one publicly in 1851. Perhaps the most famous Foucault pendulum is the one in the Pantheon in Paris, named after the French physicist who conceived the experiment. Wikipedia has a complete list of Foucault pendulums in the world categorized by country and by state for the USA. From this list, we learned that Greensboro actually has two: one at the Natural Science Center and one at NCA&T University. There are four total in North Carolina, one in nearby Winston-Salem and another in Fayetteville. According to the Wikipedia list, 39/50 US states boast at least one pendulum. 

This is our contribution to Monochrome Weekly. The monochrome theme recently celebrated its first anniversary. 

Back to School in North Carolina

Today is Back to School Day for many North Carolina students, including the K-12 public school students in the Greensboro/Guilford County Schools. Here we see a path leading to James Benson Dudley Senior High School at 1200 Lincoln Street. Likely, by the time you are reading this post, many feet will be walking along this path towards the historic, dynamic, and newly-renovated Dudley campus. Here's to a great school year for our 70,000+ students and 2,500+ teachers in our 111 schools. 

Guilford County Schools Science Fair 2009

The Four Seasons Town Centre was crowded on Wednesday, February 11th for the Guilford County Schools' Science Fair 2009. Trophy winning projects at the middle school level covered such topics as kudzu, making fuel from animal waste, safety of reusing water bottles, and minimizing heat loss with blankets for the homeless. The middle school receiving the most trophies and recognition at the district level was Aycock Middle School, where the 6th-8th grade Spanish Immersion and Science and Technology Magnet Programs are housed.

This photo was taken in the arena where awards were distributed. The actual projects filled the mall and the public was invited to view the projects.