General News
The mystery of the missing garden cats
As I left town for a quick trip over Labor Day weekend, a dozen hungry monarch caterpillars were munching away on my swamp milkweed. When I returned 32 hours later, they had vanished. Many stems had been denuded, so the cats had apparently eaten a lot of leaves before they disappeared. Most had been fifth […]
How can more people be inspired to civic involvement?
What motivates Charlotteans to vote? Volunteer? Hold political conversations or attend events? The UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and Johnson C. Smith University, with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Google, have spent the past 11 months studying civic engagement in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The project, “Charting the Civic Landscape […]
From woods to city parks and yards, here’s one little animal that gets around
I’ve seen this cute little animal in some very different places – the chipmunk. I’ve seen them in the N.C. mountains as I hiked the Appalachian Trail, on the sidewalk in Chapel Hill at the UNC-CH campus, and in Colorado (a different species) while I climbed Mount Elbert. I’ve never seen one of these little […]
Housing proves a hot topic in Charlotte
With community discussion and research ongoing around the problem of a lack of economic mobility in Charlotte, a Sept. 27 public lecture by Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer-winning author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, drew such demand that the free public tickets were snapped up in less than 24 hours. Desmond will speak […]
Cultivating a new generation of conservation leaders
On a Friday morning in late July, Jan Pender left her home in Raleigh and headed toward the Uwharrie National Forest. (I use the term “morning” loosely – it was 3:30 a.m.) Pender, director of the N.C. Youth Conservation Corps, had allowed plenty of time to stop at McDonald’s, wait for an order of 20 […]
UNCC researchers launch long-term study at Gaston preserve
As the Charlotte region urbanizes, what changes will take place over time in the Catawba River basin near the smaller creeks and watersheds? Two UNC Charlotte researchers hope questions like that can be answered with information they’ll start gathering, thanks to a Duke Energy Foundation grant. The $76,521 grant from the Duke Energy Water Resources […]
On-campus bike share arrives at UNC Charlotte
[highlightrule]To sign up for the UNC Charlotte bike-share program visit gotchabike.com/charlottewheels [/highlightrule] Bike sharing has arrived at UNC Charlotte. The program launched July 31 with 100 bikes and 10 hubs for the bikes. The UNC Charlotte bike share program, Charlotte Wheels, is run by Gotcha Bike. The Gotcha Bike app lets users reserve and return […]
The mysteries of birdsong
Since early May, a distinctive eastern towhee has frequented my backyard in Charlotte. The typical song of this common species can be translated as “Drink your teeea!” This emphatic burst of notes ends with a trill. Sometimes the song is shortened to an assertive two-note command. “Drink tea!” The towhee in my backyard sounds as […]
Storm clouds over Charlotte? A Richard Florida page-turner
When Charlotte jumped on the “creative class” bandwagon 15 years ago, I scoffed and muttered to a few colleagues that you could walk down any street within five blocks of Harvard or MIT and spot more dot-coms, book stores and other creative venues than in the entire city of Charlotte. A lot has changed for […]
Nature’s exfoliation – for trees
A while back a friend sent me a picture of the beautiful river birch on her property near Troy. Another friend is proud of the sycamore tree in her front yard, which sold her on the house where she lives. This got me thinking about the trees in our eastern U.S. forests that possess exfoliating […]