Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill to Susquehanna Major Greenway, designated in 2021, was inspired by the Greenway’s Native American predecessor – the Great Minquas Trail. A 1926 plaque marks the trail where it crossed Ridley Creek in Rose Valley PA, noting that “thousands of beaver skins yearly were carried down to Dutch and Swedish settlers on the Delaware.”

A network of rail-trails that follows this passage will soon link Harrisburg to Philadelphia. The webinar above was presented by trail and preservation architect Bob Thomas on March 21, 2024. Bob has worked on developing many parts of this new greenway.

The Lower Merion Conservancy’s webinars are made possible by membership gifts and donations.

Support our programs today!

Join Michelle Detwiler of Wild About Native Plants and the Conservancy for an interactive webinar about native plant gardening. Topics will include rain gardens, pollinator-friendly plant selection, invasive species control and more. You will also learn about the Pollinator Pathway Campaign and the Conservancy’s Green Street Program. See photos of garden projects, share your own stories of success and challenges, and get your questions answered.

Gardeners of all experience levels are welcome. Come learn about steps you can take to benefit our local ecology.

The Lower Merion Conservancy’s webinars are made possible by membership gifts and donations.

Support our programs today!

The late 18^th and early 19^th century in America saw the great effort to connect the east coast across the Allegheny Mountains to the fertile Ohio River Valley. The competition between the area eastern financial centers of New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore was intense. Fearing the success of New York State’s Erie Canal, in 1834 Pennsylvania opened a “Main Line of Public Works” – made up of a series of canals, inclined planes, and railroads – linking Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The area we know today along the Main Line was part of this great achievement.

The Lower Merion Conservancy’s webinars are made possible by membership gifts and donations.

Support our programs today!

Two hundred years ago – before the age of railroads — an extensive canal system served our region, linking Philadelphia with major points from Chesapeake Bay to Canada and from Pittsburgh to New York City.  Learn from architect, historian and planner, Bob Thomas, where this system was located, how it worked, where extensive parts of it survive to this day, and how to visit and enjoy this great historic resource.

Recorded on May 13, 2021.

*Our free programs are made possible by membership gifts and donations. Please consider making a donation when you attend this program.

About the Speaker:

Robert P. Thomas, AIA, a nationally recognized architect and planner, is a founding partner at the Philadelphia firm of Campbell Thomas & Co. Architects. He is also Chair of the Philadelphia Historical Commission and Vice President and Co-Founding Board Member of the Philadelphia Parks Alliance. Bob’s professional work is focused on historic preservation, sustainability, and community revitalization. At his firm, where he has practiced since 1969, Bob is the partner-in-charge for trail, greenway development, and heritage corridor projects.

In this area, Bob has directed or been involved with the creation of the Schuylkill River Trail, the Radnor Multi-Purpose Trail, and the Perkiomen Trail, among many others, as well as more distant greenways, including the Gettysburg to Hanover Trail and the September 11^th National Memorial Trail. Bob’s commitment to improving cycling opportunities and experiences has been recognized and celebrated by leading Rail-to-Trail and environmental organizations.

Bob also practices what he preaches. A celebrated cycling advocate, Bob can be seen anywhere and everywhere in the Philadelphia area, riding his signature folding bike.

 

 

 

Thank you to our sponsor for this event, Mathnasium of Rosemont!

Philadelphia played a central role in the development of the “Big Three” radio and television networks. The city’s CBS-affiliate, WCAU, strove to showcase the new mediums through innovative architecture, engineering, and design. This lecture, given by archivist and mid-century scholar, William Whitaker, examines the station’s built legacy and impact on our region’s modernism.

Recorded on April 28, 2021.

 

About the Speaker:

William Whitaker is curator of the Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. He is coauthor (with George Marcus) of The Houses of Louis Kahn. Trained as an architect at Penn and the University of New Mexico, Whitaker works most closely with the archival collections of Louis I. Kahn, Lawrence Halprin, and the partnership of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, in support of teaching, scholarship, preservation, and public engagement.

He co-curated over forty exhibitions including Experiments in Environment: The Halprin Workshops, 1966-71 (Graham Foundation), Anne Tyng: Inhabiting Geometry (Graham Foundation and Penn’s ICA), and, most recently, Design With Nature Now (with the McHarg Center) – a major program of exhibitions, conference, and public programs that highlight the dynamic and visionary approaches to landscape design and development in the face of climate change and global urbanization. He is project director for, What Minerva Built, an exhibition project focused on America’s first independent female architect, Minerva Parker Nichols.

 

Thank you sponsor for making this event possible!

 

 

Archer & Buchanan Architecture proudly supports the Lower Merion Conservancy. A full-service architectural design firm celebrating our twenty-fifth year, Archer & Buchanan is built upon the philosophy that buildings will be inhabited for a century or more and should continue to gain character, beauty, and value as the years pass. Recognized for exceptional design of projects that include preservation, restoration, and adaptive reuse along with new design, additions and renovations, Archer & Buchanan meets the needs of sophisticated clients who value a collaborative design process, attention to detail and quality craftsmanship.

Webinar recorded on March 23, 2021.

Climate change can be difficult to imagine for a variety of reasons, including the scope of the changes, the long time scales on which it operates, and the interconnection of environments across the globe. How can literature and art help us to understand climate change in new ways? What is the role of the arts in tackling environmental problems? Dr. Kate Neilsen of Villanova University will discuss contemporary works of film and literature seeking to tell new stories about the environmental challenges facing the world in this webinar recorded in March 2021.

Further Reading (by no means an exhaustive list):

Cli-fi novels:

American War, Omar El Akkad (2017)

Hothouse, Brian Aldiss (1962)

All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders (2016)

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood (2003)

The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi (2015)

The Drowned World, J.G. Ballard (1962)

A Friend of the Earth, T. C. Boyle (2000)

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler (1993)

Gun Island (2019) and The Hungry Tide (2004), Amitav Ghosh

The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin (2015)

Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver (2012)

The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin (1971)

Migrations, Charlotte McConaghy (2020)

Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor (2010)

Strange as This Weather Has Been, Ann Pancake (2007)

The Overstory, Richard Powers (2018)

Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse (2018)

New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson (2017)

Annihilation (Southern Reach Trilogy), Jeff Vandermeer (2014)

Gold Fame Citrus, Claire Vaye Watkins (2015)

The Swan Book, Alexis Wright (2013)

 

Short Stories and Poetry:

 

Loosed Upon the World: The Saga Anthology of Climate Fiction, edited by John Joseph Adams

(2015)

“Tell Them,” Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, https://jkijiner.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/tell-them/

I’m with the Bears, short story collection edited by Mark Martin (2011)

Losing Miami, Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué (2019)

Styrofoam, Evelyn Reilly (poems about plastics and waste, but also slow time) (2009)

The Octopus Museum, Brenda Shaughnessy (collection of poems about a world in which

cephalopods take control over humans. The poems are about environmental loss and are really beautiful and moving) (2019)

 

Young Adult Fiction about Climate Change:

 

The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline (2017)

The Carbon Diaries 2015 and The Carbon Diaries 2017, Saci Lloyd (2009, 2011)

War Girls, Tochi Onyebuchi (2019)

The Fog Diver, Joel Ross (2015)

Pacifica, Kristen Simmons (2018)

Orleans, Sherri L. Smith (2013)

Blood Red Road, Moira Young (2012)

 

Non-fiction:

 

Merchants of Doubt, Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes (2010)

The Future of Ice, Gretel Ehrlich (2004)

The Great Derangement, Amitav Ghosh, 2016

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, editor

Paul Hawken (2017)

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert (2014)

Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, George

Marshall (2014)

Eaarth, Bill McKibben (2010)

 

Support the Lower Merion Conservancy’s free webinars with a gift!

Webinar recorded on March 11, 2021.

Find planting inspiration for spring! Join native planting designer Michelle Detwiler to learn how to assess the natural conditions in your space in order to select the best plants for long-term success. Learn how to work with nature to create functioning ecosystems, protect biodiversity, manage stormwater, sequester carbon, and build beautiful year-round habitat with a unique sense of place.

The Lower Merion Conservancy’s native gardening webinars are made possible by Membership gifts and donations.

Support our programs today!