On View: Darwin’s Garden
Sunday, May 11th, 2008
When it comes to evolution, most people imagine fish with legs, anthropoid-like monkeys or those otherwise nondescript finches from the Galapagos Islands. An exciting new exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden, however, seeks to provide insight into a rather neglected realm of evolutionary history. Darwin’s Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure, on view now through June 25, is a 40-minute walking tour through botanical deep time that explores the phylogenetic relationships, histories and habits of some thirty different plant and fungus species, beginning with such primitive life forms and living fossils as algae, mosses and cycads through more complex flowering plants and carnivorous nitrogen-seeking specialists like the venus flytrap. This ambitious program spans “three separate Botanical Garden venues and includes an “evolutionary tour” of living plants that demonstrate key points on the tree of life, which links all living beings through a common ancestry.”
So take forty minutes from your day to visit the distant relatives from which you branched off hundreds of millions of years ago. Tix are $20 for adults, $7 for children, and $18 for students and seniors. You can order online or by calling 718-817-8716 during workweek business hours.
Posted in Education, Legislation, Native Plants, New York City, Renewables, Solar One | Permalink
NYC Wildflower Week Celebration at Solar One
Monday, May 5th, 2008
On Saturday May 10th from 10am-2pm, Solar One will be hosting a celebration of Native Plants as part of NYC’s first Wild Flower Week. This free event will focus on educating children on the importance of native plants and to celebrate them through fun interactive activities in Stuyvesant Cove Park. Appropriate for ages 3-12.
Activities include:
Potting up your own native plants to take home
Making seed balls to disperse somewhere in the city
Bingo and crossword puzzles
Worm composting demonstration by The Lower East Side Ecology Center
“Pretend you’re a plant” interactive park tour
Create your own plant hat and/or costume by The New York Restoration Project
Coloring your favorite native plant
All are welcome, please come and join us!
Posted in Education, Native Plants, New York City, Solar One, Stuyvesant Cove Park, Sustainability | Permalink
Green Design Lab at the Center for Architecture
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
April 18th was the final day of an ongoing education project with Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day School called the Green Design Lab. Students explored issues of sustainability through green design, using their school building as focal point to develop a school greening strategy that goes far beyond a recycling program. The final sessions was a student exhibition of their final models hosted at the Center for Architecture. Learn more about the program and how to get your school involved in this unique education project here.
And make sure to watch a short video of students involved in the project and their final school greening strategies!
Posted in Education, New York City | Permalink
American Beaver Spotted Near Solar One
Monday, April 21st, 2008
On the occasion of Pope Benedict’s visit this weekend, NYC Harbor and Scuba police were patrolling the area near the UN, about 20 blocks north of Solar One, when a beaver graced their view of the East River. Apparently struggling to stay afloat, the four foot-long, 40 lb. rodent was rushed to an UWS animal hospital but unfortunately died en route to a specialist in Utica.
Although the cause of death is still unknown, doctors suspect that she was already in bad shape before hitting the inhospitably salty waters of the East River, a tidal strait connecting the New York Harbor with the Long Island Sound. As beavers are fresh-water creatures, she likely drifted into the estuary from the Bronx River, where beavers may be in the process of re-establishing colonies.
This marked only the second confirmed beaver sighting in New York City since the early 1800s. The first beaver, José (pictured), was photographed in early 2007 after building a 12-foot lodge in the Bronx River. He was nicknamed after US Representative José E. Serrano, who has led a major initiative to revive the health of that river. More information on the efforts of Serrano and others can be found here.
Posted in East River, New York City, Solar One | Permalink
The Green Design Lab Final Project Presentation
Thursday, April 10th, 2008| April 18, 2008 | ||
| 5:00 pm | to | 6:30 pm |
Join students from Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day School as they present the final projects from a class called the Green Design Lab. The projects investigate how to green their school building through sustainable design techniques. A brief presentation, poster series and 3D models of these sustainability strategies will be shown throughout the evening. Open to community members, family and friends, this reception is meant to stimulate a dialogue about how to green NYC’s public schools through innovative green design and student involvement.
The Green Design Lab, a joint project between Solar One: Green Energy, Arts and Education Center and Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day School was initiated fall 2007 to explore issues of sustainability through the lens of design, architecture and sustainable technology.
For more information, go to www.solar1.org/education.
Friday, April 18th | 5 - 6:30pm
The Center for Architecture
536 LaGuardia Place, New York, NY
Refreshments will be served!
Posted in Education, Energy Efficiency, Green Building, New York City, Solar One, Solar One Events | Permalink
The Stuyvesant Cove Park Association Presents Cooling Mother Earth: New York’s Native American Legacy, Then and Now
Thursday, April 10th, 2008| April 17, 2008 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 9:00 pm |
Co-sponsored by NY Council for the Humanities, this talk and multimedia presentation ties together key events from New York’s indigenous people’s history, as well as its land and developmental histories, and draws urgent environmental lessons from the legacy, worldview and present-day activities of Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) traditionalists.
Posted in New York City, Solar One Events, Sustainability | Permalink
Stuyvesant Cove Park Volunteer Day A Great Success!
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
[caption: Volunteers Wendy Byrne, Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, Hannelore Breuer]
On March 29th Solar One kicked off spring 2008 with its first volunteer day in Stuyvesant Cove Park. The day started at 9:00am with coffee donated by Starbucks and guest speaker Claudia Joseph, from The Old Stone House, who spoke to the volunteers about permaculture . After the lecture volunteers were assigned tasks in the park. New volunteers partnered with seasoned ones to cut back last seasons grasses and perennials and to weed unwanted plants in preparation for this season’s new growth.
In total there were over 20 volunteers that came out to help on Saturday, of which 2 were new to the park. The volunteers were also surprised to see their Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, who represents the 74th Assembly District, put on a pair of work gloves and volunteer his time to help in the park clean up day.
The day ended at 12:30pm with pizza and soda provided by the Stuyvesant Cove Park Association. If you are interested in participating in the next volunteer day or becoming a regular park volunteer, please contact us.
Posted in East River, Native Plants, New York City, Solar One, Stuyvesant Cove Park | Permalink
First Survey of New Yorkers and Climate Change Finds Majority Worried about Impacts
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
A new survey of New Yorkers finds that most are convinced global warming is happening now and more should be done by key leaders to help New York City deal with climate change. The survey is the first-ever study of New Yorkers’ opinions about global warming and was designed and funded by researchers at Columbia and Yale Universities, and led by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia. The survey, conducted by Princeton Survey Research International, is based on English and Spanish telephone interviews with a representative sample of 1,000 adults living in New York City’s five boroughs. The interviews took place from November 28 to December 16, 2007. The survey’s key findings include:
- A large majority of New Yorkers are convinced that global warming is happening (78%), and of that number, 82 percent believe that global warming is caused mainly by human activities or caused equally by humans and natural changes.
- A majority of New Yorkers (60%) say they are personally worried about global warming. Further, 22 percent believe that global warming is already having dangerous impacts on the city while an additional 30 percent believe dangerous impacts are imminent within the next 10 years.
- Large majorities of New Yorkers believe that global warming will cause more heat waves (85%); energy blackouts (79%); worse storms, hurricanes and tornadoes (79%); increased rates of disease (72%); and flooding of subways, tunnels and airports (70%).
- Finally, a majority (69%) say it is likely that parts of New York City will need to be abandoned due to rising sea levels over the next 50 years
The complete summary and executive summary can be viewed here.
Posted in Global Warming, New York City | Permalink
Futurefarmers + Solar One Collaboration Mentioned in NY Metro
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
Modern Victory Gardens may ease urban hunger
by amy zimmer / metro new york
FEB 12, 2008
UNION SQUARE. To Amy Franceschini, the empty space in front of the Gandhi statue here could be an urban garden. The windows on buildings could have boxes for herbs and tomatoes. The roofs could have raised beds.
Franceschini, founder of the San Francisco-based design collective Futurefarmers, has convinced her city to plant crops in front of its City Hall as part of a pilot program to turn yards, balconies and unused land into food production areas. [...]
Franceschini plans to document their gardens online and help other cities adopt the program. She’s been contacted by several New York groups, she said, including Grow Greenpoint.com, the Conflux festival and Solar One.
“We want our audience to think about the potential for change through participation, but also about the messy politics of implementation”… full article
more on victory gardens: here
Posted in Art, Citysol, Native Plants, New York City, S1 in the News | Permalink
Green Renter: Greening NYC’s Transportation System - with Dani Simons, NYC Department of Transportation
Sunday, February 10th, 2008| February 25, 2008 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 8:30 pm |
Posted in New York City, Solar One Events, Transportation | Permalink
