Philadelphia Area Disc Alliance

The Philadelphia Area Disc Alliance (PADA) is a local league that organizes ultimate frisbee games during all seasons of the year. Besides for their winter league, which is played indoors, all the games are held at various locations in Fairmount Park. On May 23, PADA will be hosting a party for their 25th anniversary. Food, drinks and beer is going to be provided by PADA as well as a skills clinic to prepare new players for the upcoming summer league.

Participating in PADA's summer league is probably one of my favorite activities that I associate with Farimount Park. If anyone wants to learn more, there is league and contact information on the following website: www.pada.org

Centralia, PA

Over this past weekend I took a trip to Centralia, PA. It is located about two hours north of Philadelphia, but I thought it could be relevant to this blog since it's a unique natural landscape within driving distance of the city. Centralia was once a thriving borough until an underground coal mine fire began burning in 1962. Now there are virtually no residents and the few buildings left standing are condemned. I took this photo of smoke and steam emerging from a seam in the earth; the ground here was very hot.

Nature Combats the Stresses of School

In my sophomore year of college, the routine had begun to wear on me. After my first co-op I was experiencing doubts and worry over my major. How the hell was 18 year-old me supposed to make a decision that would define the rest of his (my) life? I was interested in computers, of course (I'm a compsci major), but I had other interests as well. If my commitment to this one was shaken by something as small as a monotonous co-op, I wondered if any of my interests were significant enough that they could persist well into adulthood. And worse--at the risk of sounding existential--was it even worth it? It seemed absurd, to worry about something as relatively meaningless as exams or college. A long enough history wouldn't know I was even here let alone whether or not I had a degree.

Every week was a stamp of the last, and each term was more of the same. As soon as an assignment was finished there was another slightly harder one. After every exam there was another chapter to start reading. There was no end in sight, and there still isn't.

In Part V of Last Child, Louv stresses the benefits that students can gain from having a regular connection with nature--a connection that is part of their curriculum. Had I read this before our Fairmount Park class I would have been more skeptical, but now I completely agree with his viewpoint. The gnawing dissatisfaction I experienced last year was marked by the grind of routine and the seeming endlessness of it all, to be sure, but I am now discovering that it was also considerably a matter of environment. Some time away from the roar of traffic and voices relieves a lot of stress.

Even our few hours in the woods each week as part of this class was enough to refresh my desire to learn, not just about nature or computers, but about everything. It's difficult to articulate, since I'm not really sure why some time in the wild every once in a while is inspiration to keep afloat. I will chance that it is simply therapeutic. Hearing birds and streams and learning about the city's history under a green canopy is a miraculous break from the ennui of the city itself. It's a reminder that we're part of something larger. Millennia-old sedimentary rocks and a mind-bogglingly interconnected ecosystem, instead of eliciting questions about the cosmic importance of our endeavors, help us realize that our problems are small.

Tastykake is the largest green bakery in the WORLD!

And it's right here in PHILLY!

I was watching the FOX news a morning or two ago, and it started to talk about the Tastykake factory in Philadelphia. Apparently it moved from their old factory in Hunting Park to the new and green factory in the Navy Yard.



So, how's the factory the largest green bakery in the world?

Well! According to Rick Nichols, the Philadelphia Inquirer Food Columnist:

"Tasty Baking's "greenest bakery" claim in based on several factors, including energy-efficient heating and cooling, water conservation, the use of recycled building materials, "daylight harvesting," and other environmental efficiencies."

To read his whole article on the new factory and how green it is, please go here:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20100505_Oohs_and_aahs_as_Tastykake_plant_opens_at_Navy_Yard.html

Here's a link to a video that shows you how the new factory looks like:
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/video/Runaround_Sue_Tastycake_Bakery_05_04_10

If you have no idea what Tastykakes are, then you're missing out! Check out their website to learn more about what they offer: http://www.tastykake.com/history.aspx

Louv Part V

In Part Five, Louv talks a lot about bringing the classroom outside. I thought about days in Biology class where we'd go stomp around outside in the woods around my school in the Poconos. Now living in Philly and thinking more about the Philadelphia School District, I realize that this ability was a great advantage. Even the fact that we had tons of buses and could bus students to places like the cranberry bog is something that I took for granted. But these field trips only happened in Honors-type courses. At a school that is not doing so well academically, average classes are pelted with state testing preparation and try not to deviate from the basic curriculum.

In the Philadelphia school system, I doubt students take many 'natural' field trips and probably have to walk quite far to access any woods. I think the schools can find a way to take a busload of students into Fairmount Park to learn about the surroundings once in a while. One day a semester will not set students back. Even if it has to serve as a reward for upper level classes, they need to begin somewhere. Louv discusses groups such as the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation, the Association for Experiential Education, and Foxfire. These groups could help Philadelphia teachers organize these programs. Even other schools listed in the book or local Sierra Clubs could give some advice on how to begin. Hopefully the lesson plans we are working on for class can also serve as a tool. In our class this term, we have seen how grateful the Fairmount Park is to have students. There is really no reason why nature can not be integrated more into the Philadelphia School System and I hope that with time, there is a push for the nature-based education we hear about from Louv.

Ignoring

This week, I was thinking a lot about sensory deprivation living in Philly. I often find myself "tuning out" when there are people yelling, cars honking, cars driving past, assorted construction noises, and other unenjoyable noises. Louv believes this selective type of hearing is reducing my ability to use my senses.

I believe this to be true. Instead of using my sense of hearing, sight, and smell to enjoy my surroundings, I must fight to tune out the chaos.

Childhood

When reading the book for class, I find myself thinking of my childhood and comparing it to the way kids play now. When I was a kid, I would play outside all the time, whether it was outside on our swing set or across the street at the park, or just hanging out somewhere in the neighborhood, I was outside. On the weekends my dad would take my brother, my sister, and me on little adventures in the woods across the street and we would explore the wilderness and just listen to the animals and try to find dear. We also would try and take trips to different state parks in Illinois, and surrounding states. One big place we would go was Starved Rock, which is gorgeous and it's so relaxing and peaceful there, it's out in the middle of nowhere, no big cities or 8 lane highways nearby. We also went to my aunt and uncle's log cabin a lot, which was so fun. We would just explore the area, go hiking in the woods, or go swimming in the lake. Now, kids are too busy sitting inside on their computers or playing video games to even acknowledge the outdoors. Computers were new to us, and there wasn't as many video game systems around back then. Life seemed simpler, hanging out outside, playing kick the can and ghost in the graveyard, catching fireflies in the summer time. I feel like our generation was the last generation that enjoyed the outdoors and being in nature, there are still some kids who surprise you today, who want to be outside and go on hikes and what not, but most of them seem perfectly content sitting on their couch playing their PS3. I never really thought about the problem Louv talks about in Last Child in the Woods. I notice the differences between my parent's childhood and mine, and now mine and my neighbors, but it never really hit me until I was reading this book and seeing all the differences and changes that have taken place across the country in the last 50 or so years. Nature is shrinking to make room for us, and we are losing green space, places for kids to just hangout. Plus, the world doesn't seem as safe anymore, so parents don't let their kids go too far from the house without fearing something terrible is going to happen to them. A lot has changed, and I fear that it's going to keep changing and our kids will have even less nature to explore than we did.