Month: August 2012

Today: ‘Greening a better world’

OARDC hosts a talk today (8/24) by Washington State’s Norm Lewis, who is Regents’ Professor and director of the Institute of Biological Chemistry. He’ll present “Facing Societal Needs Now and in the Future: Greening a Better World” at 11:30 a.m. in Wooster. Free and open to the public. Also viewable in Columbus by video link. Read a story about Lewis’s research on developing new biofuels, “Natural Solutions to the Energy Crisis,” here.

‘A powerful voice’ … a ‘force of nature’

Scientist David Suzuki will receive Case Western Reserve University’s Inamori Ethics Prize during a program next month in Cleveland. He’s the author of The Big Picture: Reflections on Science, Humanity, and a Quickly Changing Planet, among others; hosted the PBS series “The Secret of Life”; and is called “a powerful voice on behalf of biodiversity, future generations, and the planet.” Free and open to the public. How to get tickets (scroll down).

Growing green, with an eye down the road

Touchstone Research Lab’s new biofuel algae farm in northeast Ohio, which includes OARDC as a partner, is mentioned in last week’s Energy Efficiency News.

Meanwhile, Ohio State scientist Allison Snow, in a story carried by UPI on Monday (8/20), sounds a cautionary note about the possible future genetic engineering of algae. She holds an adjunct appointment in our college.

Steps to a beautiful, sustainable backyard

Sustainability can start in your own yard and garden. With the trees, shrubs, and flowers that you grow and how you grow them. The Dawes Arboretum in Newark in central Ohio — in partnership with the Licking County Master Gardeners (an OSU Extension program) and featuring native-plants author/expert Allan Armitage of the University of Georgia — will take a day to show you how (pdf).

What you’ll find this year at the Gwynne

Call it Ohio’s showcase of conservation. A chance to hear 25 experts on 30 topics in just one place at just one time. The Gwynne Conservation Area, which is part of our Molly Caren Agricultural Center near London in central Ohio, has a full schedule of talks and demonstrations set for this year’s Farm Science Review, which runs from Sept. 18-20.

 

New parkland could be force for sustainability education

The Columbus and Franklin County Metropolitan Park District is currently obtaining land along the Scioto River in Grove City, Ohio, where it plans to establish the final 2009 levy-promised parkland, but it does not currently have a design drafted for this park. Our project provides a design for the nineteenth Columbus and Franklin County Metro Park, which, for the purposes of this proposal, has been christened Scioto Bends Metro Park.

Our goal was to provide a model for change in transforming the dominance of traditional park development by focusing on sustainability education, and managing natural resources for resilience to persist through change in an uncertain future.  Various educational initiatives will encourage conservation behavior and promote a positive perception of individual sustainable actions within the community.

Image courtesy of Metro Parks. The student group highlighted areas reflected in its proposal: purple is recreation areas, red is farm and gardens, green is habitat restoration and natural resource management, and orange is the greenways trail extension.

Of the many park features proposed to achieve this ambitious educational mission, the focal point will be the Scioto South Living Research Farm and Community Gardens. This “farm of the future” would be an educational partnership effort with The Ohio State University, and act as a functional, actively operating research farm discovering the future of sustainable agriculture, and would actively educate the local community on the importance of local, sustainably produced food sources.

This design provides a cost-effective opportunity to shape traditional park design to more directly address the ever-changing environmental challenges of the 21st century.