Cape Fear's Going Green • Spring 2022

Letter from the Editor I am so pleased that some events are returning to a more in-person experience. Connecting with you, our readers, face to face is one way we learn what you’re interested in having us cover in future issues. We’re hearing more these days about your interest in eating healthy foods.

There are those who think adopting more plant-based meals is a healthy way to go. In our last issue, we wrote about Wilmington’s three all-vegan restaurants, and we routinely offer original plant-based recipes. In this spring issue, we’re pleased to share information about two festivals that focus on healthy lifestyles: VegFest in April and Veg-Out in the fall.

Our spring issue also covers several projects at the University of North Carolina Wilmington—the new GeoGarden depicting the range of geology throughout North Carolina, eco-friendly efforts on campus and sustainability lessons brought home by The GREEN Program’s trip to Iceland.

Our lead stories are about beneficial insects, and the discovery of a rare butterfly on Eagles Island where developers are hoping to build high-rises.

We are gathering information on what area faith-based organizations are doing on the environmental front. Does the place where you worship have a green committee?

Serving either the congregation or reaching out to the community at large? Let us know what you’re doing.

Our thoughts are with the citizens of Ukraine.

— Valerie L. Robertson Editor

Contents 3 Construction Threatens Critically Endangered Butterfly in Eagles Island Wetlands 5 Mean, Green, Pest-Eating Machines: This Spring, Thank a Green Lacewing 6 Pawpaws Attract the Elusive Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly 8 Natural History of North Carolina 9 North Carolina Rocks! (Literally): An Exploration of UNCW’s GeoGarden 13 The Power of Solar: Solar Energy at the University of North Carolina Wilmington 14 UNCW Group Trip to Iceland Influences Sustainability in the Cape Fear 17 Plastic Is Drowning the Planet—Ocean Friendly Establishments Are Here to Save It 19 Coastal Eco Explorer: Your Interactive Digital Pocket Guide to Park Wildlife 21 Wrightsboro Teacher Wins Hog Island Scholarship 22 Your Ecological House™—Climate Chaos, Food Chaos and War 23 Recipes 24 Wilmington Earth Day Festival Returns to Outdoors 25 Wilmington Vegfest Is Back and at Legion Stadium Sports Complex 26 Legacy Architectural Salvage Plans Spring Events 27 Green News 28 Crossword 32 Kids Korner

Front Cover: A Rare Skipper visits a Bulltongue Arrowhead flower on Eagles Island. Bulltongue Arrowhead, or Sagittaria lancifolia, is a broadleaf plant found throughout the Southeast and into Texas. It is almost always found in wetlands, as it can tolerate mild salinity. It can grow to a height of three feet, and its leaves disappear in winter. It has striking white flowers.

See story on page 3.

Cape Fear’s Going Green is a quarterly publication promoting eco-friendly resources and lifestyles in the Lower Cape Fear River Basin.

Photo © Bryan Putnam, Art-Sublimina-Photography.com

Advisors & Editorial Contributors: Neha Awasthi, Carol Bales, Kevin Blackburn, Sara Bright, Shelby Diehl, Jess Elliott, Morgan Freese, Morgan Greene, Kay Lynn Hernandez, Stefán Hrafnkelsson, Jeff Janowski, Karly Lohan, Sally Smits Matsen, Casey Nelson, Avery Owen, Jill Peleuses, Shannon Bradburn Pragosa, Bryan Putnam, Jessica Scudella, Roger Shew, Nick Syracuse, Philip S. Wenz and Ally Zimmerman.

Where to Find Us

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Read It Online

Read the most recent issues on issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen.

In the Community Pick up a free copy at one of the locations listed below or at in-person meetings of environmental groups as they return to meeting live.

Arboretum/New Hanover County Extension Service, Aunt Kerry’s Pet Stop, Lovey’s Market, Old Books on Front Street, Pomegranate Books, Tidal Creek Co-op, UNCW, Shelton Herb Farm and many Food Lion and Harris Teeter locations. See https://arcg.is/1WWi0y for a map.

Subscribe For the price of postage and packaging, you can receive the next four issues in your own mailbox. Mail a check payable to “Going Green Publications” in the amount of $16 to the address in the green box.

Sign up for our email list to be alerted when each new issue becomes available. Write us at publisher@goinggreenpublications.com.

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Publisher & Editor in Chief: Valerie Robertson Sister City: Eugene, Oregon (Voted “Greenest City” 2006 by The Green Guide) Eugene Contributing Editor: Mary Robertson

Cape Fear’s Going Green Going Green Publications P. O. Box 3164 • Wilmington, NC 28406 (910) 547-4390 publisher@goinggreenpublications.com www.goinggreenpublications.com Editorial: If you have story ideas or calendar items to suggest, email us at editor@goinggreenpublications.com, or call (910) 547-4390.

Advertising information: Email ads@goinggreenpublications.com.

Cape Fear’s Going Green is distributed free throughout Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover, Onslow and Pender counties. A partial map of locations appears at https://arcg.is/1WWi0y. If you have a business and would like to receive multiple copies for the public, please contact us.

The views and opinions expressed in articles in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication.

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conservation

Construction Threatens Critically Imperiled Butterfly in Eagles Island Wetlands

by Morgan Greene The golden butterflies pictured below are rare skippers (Problema bulenta), and if you want to see them in North Carolina, the only place you’ll find them is in the wetlands of Eagles Island.

In fact, no one knew whether the skippers still existed in our state until wildlife biologist and owner of Wilmington Outdoor Adventures, Kay Lynn Hernandez, recently rediscovered them.

Hernandez first spotted the skippers on one of her kayaking ecotours and subsequently spent weeks trying to photograph them to confirm her sighting. The rare skippers are quite shy and typically fluttered away whenever Hernandez got close, but she wasn’t alone in her mission: many ecotour clients were eager to

help and would email her butterfly photos they’d taken during their tours. When Hernandez finally captured the skippers on her phone, she sent the pictures to NC State to be identified by the university’s resident lepidopterist, Matt Bertone.

Sadly, these photos were not high enough quality for Bertone to accurately identify the butterflies as rare skippers. Because rare skippers are critically imperiled in North Carolina, Hernandez knew getting a second chance to photograph the butterflies was unlikely.

“I was afraid we’d never see [them] again,” says Hernandez.

“There could be fewer than five to twelve individuals remaining, to get that kind of conservation status.”

Undeterred, Hernandez called her friend and professional photographer Bryan Putman, and the two set out for Eagles Island in hopes of getting a proper photograph. After six hours of searching, they miraculously stumbled upon the skippers again.

Putman took the photograph featured on this page, which was successfully used to identify the skippers and prove that they still reside on Eagles Island.

The rare skipper is a wetland species that feeds primarily on aquatic plants like pickerelweed and arrowhead, both of which grow in Eagles Island. Unfortunately, Eagles Island may soon be unable to support the skippers, which could lead to the species’ extinction in North Carolina. There are two proposals for construction in Eagles Island: Battleship Point and Wilmington Hotel and Spa. This development would likely spell doom for the golden butterflies.

“We looked at a plan one of the engineers was working on … and it just has this massive footprint,” says Hernandez regarding the plans for Wilmington Hotel and Spa. “It’s really in a wetland.

There’s just enough upland for them to legally build on it, but they haven’t left any space … for any stormwater or impacts from the building to be dealt with before it impacts the wetlands around it. And of course, the river.”

Finding a critically imperiled species would be enough to raise alarm over the negligently planned construction for Eagles Island, not to mention the impact the construction could have on the wetlands and surrounding ecosystems. However, there is yet another crack in these proposals that cannot be overlooked: Eagles Island is a part of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.

Photo © Bryan Putnam, Art-Sublimina-Photography.com

Rare skippers are attracted to Pickerelweed, also known as Pickerel Rush (Pontederia cordata).

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When Hernandez leads ecotours around Eagles Island, she focuses on the wetland’s cultural history just as much as its wildlife. She particularly focuses on the lasting impact of the Gullah Geechee, a group of people kidnapped from Africa’s west coast for their society’s advancements in rice cultivation. The enslaved Gullah Geechee not only hand dug Eagles Island’s rice canals, but

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(continued on page 4)

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conservation Rare Skipper (continued) About the Rare Skipper The rare skipper is a very small butterfly that lives along the Atlantic coast in fresh or brackish tidal marshes and abandoned rice paddies. Its upperside is yellow-orange with black borders; the borders are wider in the female. It is endangered and vulnerable to extinction. In North Carolina, the only two counties where it has been reported since 1980 are Brunswick and New Hanover, according to Butterflies of North Carolina: Their Distribution and Abundance by Harry LeGrand and Tom Howard.* How did Kay Lynn Hernandez know to look for the rare skipper on Eagles Island? She had seen two plants that she knew to be attractive to the skipper: Pickerelweed and Arrowhead. When these native plants were in flower, she knew to look in their vicinity.

Pickerelweed, or Pontederia cordata, has heart-shaped leaves, and can be three feet tall. It produces a six-inch spike of small purple flowers that bloom from the bottom up.

Bulltongue Arrowhead, or Sagittaria lancifolia, pictured on our cover, is a broadleaf wetlands plant that can grow to three feet tall throughout the Southeast. It has striking white flowers. * See https://auth1.dpr.ncparks.gov/nbnc/a/accounts.php.

Photo © Bryan Putnam, Art-Sublimina-Photography.com

Kay Lynn Hernandez paddles along Eagles Island in the hopes of seeing Pickerelweed or Arrowhead flowers because she might then spot a Rare Skipper.

engineered the canal system themselves, which still exists today for Hernandez to lead ecotours through.

“There’s so much history, important history, that I feel like people need to be aware of out there,” says Hernandez. “Not just people who are residents here, but also visitors … who might consider moving here one day, so they’ll be good stewards of our coastal ecosystems once they do arrive.”

If the construction planned for Eagles Island is carried out, an important wetland will be contaminated, a cultural heritage site will be degraded and some of the last remaining rare skippers on our planet will almost surely be wiped out. Let’s spread the word and hope that the Eagles Island stakeholders change their minds, choosing to save these little golden butterflies over yet another towering hotel.

Morgan Greene is a junior at UNCW majoring in biology with a concentration in freshwater and terrestrial conservation. She enjoys sharing fun facts about insects and other tiny animals on her blog, The ArthroBlogger, found at thearthroblogger.com. Kay Lynn Hernandez is the owner of Wilmington Outdoor Adventures. Learn more about the company at www.wilmingtonoutdooradventures.com.

Wilmington Outdoor Adventures

Summer Adventure Camps Guided Kayak Tours Surf Lessons www.wilmingtonoutdooradventures.com

Anr.W'rll"WT •

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insects

Mean, Green, Pest-Eating Machines: This Spring, Thank a Green Lacewing

by Morgan Greene They may not have psychedelic wings or produce golden honey, but green lacewings are just as important to your garden as bees and butterflies. In fact, these little insects start tending to your flowers much sooner than most. While bee grubs are still developing in their hives, lacewing larvae are scarfing down mites, aphids, harmful beetles and other pests, earning them the nickname “aphid lions.”

To ensure their young will have plenty of food, green lacewings lay their eggs in early spring on plants that aphids and other pests are likely to visit. Each individual egg stands upright on the end of a thin stalk. This helps distance the eggs from one another, so that the hungry larvae don’t eat their siblings when they hatch. The female lacewing also lowers the odds of her offspring eating one another by laying the eggs by themselves or in small groups rather than all together.

Lacewing larvae provide invaluable pest control services from spring to fall—

Black-horned Green Lacewing (Chrysopa nigri-cornis). Observation @ robvanepps, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/96814470. No changes made.

a single aphid lion can devour more than 150 pests in a single week! These helpful larvae can be recognized by their forwardfacing pincers and mottled, lip-shaped bodies. Some also carry debris on their backs as protective camouflage, which gives them the appearance of a walking piece of moss or lichen.

After three molts, aphid lions wrap themselves in soft, spherical cocoons and develop into bright green, lacey-winged adults. Even grown up, green lacewings do plenty to earn their keep in the garden: while not as efficient as bees, lacewings are still effective pollinators and sometimes continue to prey on garden pests, not to mention that they give rise to more aphid lions.

Green Lacewing larva. (Family Chrysopidae). Observation@ butchyj https://www.inaturalist.org/ observations/80730153.

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Green lacewings are native to the Cape Fear region, and can be commercially purchased to help fight off agricultural pests in gardens and on farmland. Ladybugs are another frequently purchased pest control species, but aphid lions are more effective because they cannot fly away when released. For a more natural approach, planting flowers like goldenrod and yarrow is a great way to attract nectar-feeding adult lacewings to your garden.

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So, when you see these spindly green insects flitting about your porchlight, take heart—you’ve got some very special neighbors looking out for your garden this spring.

Morgan Greene is a junior at UNCW majoring in biology with a concentration in freshwater and terrestrial conservation. She enjoys sharing fun facts about insects and other tiny animals on her blog, The ArthroBlogger, found at thearthroblogger.com.

Green Lacewing eggs (Family Chrysopidae). Observation @ kenkneidel, https://www.inaturalist. org/observations/101097987. No changes made.

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native plants

Pawpaws Attract the Elusive Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly

by Carol Bales

This is the eleventh of a series of Cape Fear area native plant articles to appear in Going Green. The articles will include stories about common native plants that would enhance any coastal North Carolina garden or landscape.

I spotted my first Zebra Swallowtail at the Zilker Botanical Garden in Austin, Texas–a large, 358-acre tract of land that encompasses Barton Springs with a natural spring winding through the park. The gardens attract numerous varieties of butterflies and moths, most of which are native to the geographical area. Butterfly enthusiasts transformed an acre of the garden into a butterfly trail.

At my first sighting of this butterfly, I was careful to identify the Zebra as a swallowtail and not a Zebra longwing. Since then, I have been researching this wonderful butterfly in the hopes of learning to attract it to my own yard in North Carolina. I’d like to share some resources you might find helpful if you’d like to get better acquainted with this beautiful butterfly.

The first reference I would like to recommend is Wildflowers & Plant Communities of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and Piedmont—A Naturalist’s Guide to the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia by Timothy P. Spira. In the book, he describes the host plant—the pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba)—that Zebra swallowtails use exclusively as the only food for their caterpillars, and that is where they lay their eggs.

As Spira reminds us, butterflies have co-evolved with the plants that support their young. Zebra Swallowtail caterpillars eat only pawpaw leaves; Zebra Longwings consume passion vines. Spira says he was sleuthing around the forests looking for native plants and insects when he came upon a pawpaw patch and some Zebra Swallowtail Butterflies.

I have been trying to attract Zebra Swallowtail butterflies to my Wilmington yard for at least ten years but haven’t spotted any yet in my gardens. About ten years ago, I planted two sturdy pawpaw saplings in my backyard, knowing that they would not bear any fruit for at least five years.

They are now about 30 feet tall, and they produce many delicious pawpaw “Custard apples” that we enjoy eating and sharing with neighbors.

A couple of years ago, I joined a UNCW naturalists’ walk through Holly Shelter Game Land and was delighted to spot a beautiful Zebra Swallowtail flitting around some young Pawpaw trees. So, I know that these creatures are close by, and I hope to see one soon near my home. While I wait for spring to come, I have been researching this elusive butterfly.

Butterflies are part of the botanical order of Lepidoptera, and the Zebra Swallowtail is part of the species of Kite Wing butterflies, Eurytides philolaur. The botanical order for these butterflies has been changed lately to Protographium marcellas (Cramer). Those who study butterflies are called lepidopterists. These scientists share results of their research by writing books and articles that are available in most bookstores, online and libraries.

photo © Sara Bright

Zebra Swallowtail caterpillars feed only on pawpaw trees, a native tree with distinctively-shaped flowers.

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One reference is The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the making of the Modern World

by Edward D. Melillo. This book explains the

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

photo © Sara Bright

Zebra Swallowtails lay their eggs on pawpaw leaves, ensuring the emerging caterpillar will have a ready food source.

proboscis and how butterflies use this organ to feed. The proboscis is an interesting organ that is used after a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. It is an elongated tube-shaped organ that allows a butterfly to extract nectar from flowers or take up salts and minerals from the ground.

Because of the organ’s flexibility, the butterfly can use it to access flower blossoms of all different shapes. The proboscis is in two pieces, as if you’d cut a straw lengthwise. The butterfly uses its front legs to press the two pieces together from root to tip, so it can be used to suck nectar from a flower. When not being used, a butterfly’s proboscis is rolled up out of the way.

Another reference I found, Wings in the light: Wild Butterflies in North America

by David Lee Myers, is particularly interesting. It has many photos, one of which is a Zebra Swallowtail nectaring on wildflowers below a pawpaw tree. Another is a close-up photo of the butterfly’s proboscis with its sensilla—a sense organ used while visiting nectar sources—at the tip.

When I lived in Austin, Texas over 25 years ago, I was fortunate enough to create the Austin Butterfly Forum (ABF), which included a few butterfly enthusiasts and local lepidopterists. It was one of many gardening organizations of Zilker Botanical Garden. The Austin Butterfly Forum was started by a dozen butterfly enthusiasts on a freezing night in February. We met monthly to learn about the butterflies of Travis County. Now, the ABF has grown to about 1,500 members.

—Carol Bales (continued on page 7)

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native plants Zebra Swallowtail (continued) My friend Jeffrey Glassberg wrote A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America and it contains a description of the various colorations of the Zebra Swallowtail.

Glassberg details the changes in coloration and size of tails that occur in the butterfly’s spring and summer forms. In spring, for example, they have shorter tails, and the bands in its stripes are narrower.

Below are some resources that might give you inspiration to try to attract the elusive Zebra Swallowtail. I hope that you’ll be inspired to seek out the most beautiful North American butterfly I have ever seen.

Reference List Eisner T, Eisner M, Siegler M. 2005. Chapter 64. Class Insecta, Order Lepidoptera, Family Papilionoidea, Eurytides marcellus, the zebra swallowtail butterfly. pp.

297-303. In: Secret Weapons: Defenses of Insects, Spiders, Scorpions, and Other Many-legged Creatures. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 372 pp.

Glassberg J. 2017. A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America. 2nd ed. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey.

420 pp.

Myers, D. 2019. Wings in the light – Wild Butterflies in North America. Yale University Press. New Haven and London.

Opler PA, Malikul V. 1992. A Field Guide to Eastern Butterflies (Peterson Field Guide Series). Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, N.Y. 486 pp.

Spira, T. 2011. Wildflowers and plant communities of the Southern Appalachian Mountains and Piedmont. A Southern Gateways Guide. A naturalist’s guide to the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia.

University of North Carolina press. Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Helpful Organizations: North American Butterfly Association. 4 Delaware Road, Morristown, New Jersey 07969. www.naba.org.

Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. P.O. Box 97387, Washington, D.C. 20090-7387. www.xerces.org.

Kentucky State University Pawpaw research project. Kirk Pomper, PhD. KSU, 400

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photo © [Darrell Gulin/Danita Delimont] Adobe Stock

A Zebra Swallowtail displays its striking pattern of black and white stripes while nectaring on a flower.

East Main Street, Room 205, Frankfort, Kentucky, 40601. (502) 247-5942. Kirk. pomper@kysu.edu.

Vacation Recommendation The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge is where one can see more kinds of butterfly than anywhere else in the U.S. There are butterfly gardens planted in front of the Visitor Center where as many as 75 species of butterflies have been seen during a single visit to these gardens in late September and/or October. The Refuge is located seven miles south of Alamo, Texas. www.fws.gov/refuge/santa-ana/visit-us or (956) 784-7500.

Carol Bales is an avid gardener and seed saver and grows many native plants in her yard. She is a regular contributor of articles on native plants. During an annual garden event at Zilker, while educating visitors about butterflies, she met her husband-to-be, who was there enjoying the flowers and butterflies. They married in the same spot a year later, and still share their love of gardening and butterfly observation.

Special thanks to Sara Bright for permission to use her photos. She is the photographer for Butterflies of Alabama: Glimpses into Their Lives by Paulette Ogard and Sara Bright, The University of Alabama Press, 2010.

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geology

Natural History of North Carolina

by Roger Shew

North Carolina has a long geological history, with the western part of the state having rocks greater than 1 billion years old. The state is divided into three physiographic provinces: from west to east, these are the Blue Ridge, Piedmont and Coastal Plain. The Blue Ridge comprises 10% of the state while the Piedmont and Coastal Plain each cover roughly 45% of the state.

North Carolina becomes “younger” as you move east with active sediment movement and deposition in our rivers and on the coast. And with these geological changes from west to east there are also changes in the topography, resources and ecological diversity.

The Earth’s surface of continents and ocean basins was much different in the

past compared to what we see today.

These continents and ocean basins, termed “plates,” are in constant motion.

Plate movement is described by the Theory of Plate Tectonics, the underlying theory in Geology.

The Blue Ridge and Piedmont regions were formed by multiple plate collisions, known as convergent plate boundaries.

The buckling and subduction of the plate edges led to the formation of igneous and metamorphic rocks through the deep heating and melting of rock and the pressure and heat of the boundary collisions, respectively. The igneous rocks, or fire rocks, include ancient volcanoes and deep magmas that solidified into hydrothermal veins with gold and granitic batholiths/bodies of rock. These granitic bodies, which are now exposed at the surface because of weathering and erosion of the overlying rock, supply rich resources for North Carolina including feldspar, quartz and even gold. In fact, North Carolina was the original gold rush state in 1799 and the leading producer of gold until 1849.

photo by Valerie Robertson

Roger Shew shares information about two limestone rocks mined from the Martin Marietta Quarry at Castle Hayne. The larger one, on the right, is classic Castle Hayne Limestone with lots of fossils and high porosity. The smaller boulder represents an unconformity, missing time in the geologic record, where 40 million-year-old Eocene Castle Hayne Limestone overlies 70 million-year-old Cretaceous age limestone rocks. This is a classic piece of geological history. Note the milkweed blooming in the rain garden behind Shew.

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During the convergent episodes of continental collisions, sediments and rocks were metamorphosed. (“Meta” means “change” and “morph” refers to “shape” or “form.”)

The Piedmont is mostly composed of metamorphic rocks.

You might notice from the geologic map below that the colors are mostly oriented NE to SW. This was the angle

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

of continental collisions of island arcs and the Continent of Africa with North America (Africa was part of a much larger continent of Gondwanaland and North America was part of Laurasia).

The Blue Ridge and Piedmont were formed in the Proterozoic through the late Paleozoic. Although plates move at slow rates and mountains build and erode at slow rates, the long geologic time of over ½ billion years is adequate to move mountains and continents and to wear them down. The resultant mountains in North Carolina were once higher than 20,000 feet, but Mother Nature has relentlessly worn them away over hundreds of millions of years to the subtle, rounded mountains we know today. We do still have the highest mountain peak east of the Mississippi River: Mount Mitchell stands at 6,684 feet.

North America and Africa were joined together at the start of the Mesozoic. But the continents are in constant motion and another phase of continental movement began. North and South America started to move away from Africa and Europe along rift basins formed at a divergent boundary. A divergent boundary is a spreading center. North Carolina was once joined to the African countries of Mauritania and Senegal. Rifting continued with some basins finally opening to form the ancestral Atlantic Ocean.

Some of the rift basins ceased opening and formed small NE to SW trending sedimentary-filled basins. These are the Triassic Basins of North Carolina that include the Durham, Sanford and Dan River Basins. The sedimentary rocks include many red beds (source of clay/sand for bricks) of lake and river deposits as well as minor coal deposits, which were important in the Civil War. Numerous red beds are easily seen west of Sanford and at the RDU airport on the west side of Raleigh; this is the Durham Basin.

Following this rifting phase, there have been no major tectonic episodes in North Carolina. The last ~100 million years has been a time of weathering and erosion of the mountains with sediments brought to the coast to form rivers, deltas and beaches. Marine limestones and (continued on page 12)

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geology

North Carolina Rocks! (Literally): An Exploration of UNCW’s GeoGarden

by Ally Zimmerman and Roger Shew

UNCW now has a GeoGarden designed and implemented by faculty member Roger Shew. We interviewed him to learn about the geology of the garden and the inspiration behind it.

North Carolina’s geology is unique and varies across three main regions of the state: Blue Ridge, Piedmont and Coastal Plain. North Carolina also has a long geological history; in the western part of the state, there are rocks greater than one billion years old! Here in Wilmington, the GeoGarden at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington (UNCW) provides a unique opportunity to view rocks from all three regions of North Carolina.

This garden, located on UNCW’s campus, contains rocks from across the state of North Carolina ranging from the Fort Fisher Coquina along the Coast to the Spruce Pine Pegmatite in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Not only does the GeoGarden provide a unique opportunity to view ge-

ology from across the state, it also features stormwater management with a “streambed” and rain garden. The rain garden helps collect rainwater from the roof of DeLoach Hall and surrounding grounds to help prevent polluted runoff from getting into the Bradley Creek since most of the UNCW campus is in the Bradley Creek watershed.

Stormwater in the GeoGarden One of the important ecological and educational aspects of the GeoGarden is its stormwater mitigation features, including a streambed and rain garden.

The streambed flows from west to east funneling water from gutters and the surrounding area into the rain garden.

The rain garden was constructed in the shape of a Carolina Bay. Carolina Bays are oval wetlands and bay lakes commonly found in the Coastal Plain; Jones Lake and White Lake are examples. The northwest to southeast orientation and length-to-width ratio of Carolina Bays was the inspiration for designing the rain garden. There is also native vegetation such as cypress, sweet bay and palmetto incorporated in the rain garden.

Inspiration for the GeoGarden The beautiful DeLoach GeoGarden was implemented by Roger Shew, a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in the department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. The goal and inspiration of the project is to provide an educational opportunity for students at the University, nearby schools and the community. Roger Shew’s plan is to have schools come visit to see and feel a bit of North Carolina and understand the geologic richness and resources of our state.

In addition to the geologic knowledge, other educational benefits include the stormwater management function and the native plants that have been planted in the garden area.

Two amazing efforts that are still in progress include finishing signage for the site and the construction of a website that will provide online information about North Carolina as well as a curriculum for school-aged students and teachers to use.

Roger Shew hopes that the site will be used for many years. He attended UNCW as an undergrad and has taught there for (continued on page 10)

North Carolina Geologic Map Diabase

This N.C. Geologic Map illustrates the ages, rock types, and source locations of the GeoGarden Rock.

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geology Rock Garden (continued) 20 years. The GeoGarden is one way for him to give back to the community where he grew up and to the wonderful UNCW community.

About the rocks

photo by Roger Shew

The base of this downspout was cut off and extended so that rainwater from the roof of DeLoach Hall would flow into and down the dry stream of rocks. The water moves into the rain garden at the end of the garden, where accumulated water can seep slowly into the ground.

The rocks within the GeoGarden are positioned just as they occur in the state.

Rocks from the mountains occur at one end of the “trail” and the rocks follow the geologic provinces from west to east ending at the Coast. You can start at either end of the trail to study the rocks. The Spruce Pine Pegmatite is the most westerly occurring rock from the Blue Ridge Province and the Fort Fisher Coquina is the most easterly occurring rock on the beach in the Coastal Plain. There are a total of ten rocks in the display; all donated by quarries or individuals. The rocks represent all three rock types: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. Many of them are also important rock and mineral resources including granite, feldspar, aggregate, phosphate, pyrophyllite, diabase and even an aquifer. Below is a list of the rock types in the GeoGarden: the first rock type is the farthest east and the last is the farthest west.

Fort Fisher Coquina: The coquina is the only rock outcrop (exposed rock) on the beach in North Carolina. It is 55,000–70,000 years old, from the Pleistocene, and is composed of broken shell material and minor quartz sand. The Fort Fisher site is a designated State Heritage Location.

Aurora Quarry Phosphate: The Aurora Quarry is a very large quarry near Aurora, North Carolina where phosphate mining occurs. The age of the sediments and rocks is 2–15 million years old from the Pliocene to Miocene epoch. Phosphate is commonly used for phosphoric acid and fertilizer. North Carolina has the second largest source of phosphate in the United States and the Aurora Quarry is world famous for its numerous, well-preserved marine fossils including whale vertebrae, mollusk shells and Carcharodon megalodon shark teeth, the North Carolina State Fossil.

Castle Hayne Limestone: This rock is primarily limestone that formed in normal marine waters approximately 40 million years ago during the Eocene age. The Castle Hayne Limestone is an important aquifer in New Hanover and Brunswick counties and is also a major source of aggregate for roadways. The rock contains numerous fossils including mollusks, gastropods, echinoderms and bryozoans. (continued on page 11)

Effectiveness of a Working Rain Garden The stormwater mitigation features have proven effective in handling more than three inches of rain in a 24-hour period, which is well over stormwater design requirements. The image below left illustrates the area holding that volume of water; the image on the right shows that complete infiltration had occurred by the following day. Photos by Roger Shew.

Rainfall 9/22/21; Time 3 p.m.

5.61 inches of rain in 2 days and 3.96 inches in last 24 hours.

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9/23/21; Time 10 a.m.

All of the water had infiltrated and no water went into the square overflow.

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geology Rock Garden (continued) Petrified Wood: Petrified wood is found along the Cape Fear River and was formed 70+ million years during the Cretaceous age. Silica has replaced the original wood fabric preserving some of the tree’s rings and fabric.

Diabase: The diabase is an igneous rock found in the Triassic basins of North Carolina that formed ~180 million years ago during the Triassic age. This rock is primarily used for aggregate in construction.

Pyrophyllite: Sedimentary mudrocks were metamorphosed to form the pyrophyllite. The rock is smooth and soft, similar to talc. It is used in refractory processes and in ceramics.

Lilesville Granite: The granite is characterized by having large crystals of quartz, feldspar and biotite. The most distinctive mineral is the pink feldspar. The large crystals indicate that the magma cooled slowly, which is the only way to form large crystals. The igneous rock formed approximately 325 million years ago during one of the convergent mountain building episodes.

Mount Airy Granite: The Mount Airy Granite is an intrusive igneous body of rock that was formed 355–390 million years ago. It is composed of quartz, feldspar and biotite.

Granite is the state rock of North Carolina and the Mount Airy Quarry is the largest openfaced granite quarry in the world. Its uniform composition has allowed it to be used in the Wright Brothers Monument, the Fort Knox Bullion Depository and the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C. Marion Metamorphic Rock: The Marion rock was once a layered sedimentary rock that has been metamorphosed. There is abundant mica forming the foliation of the rock. The dominant use is for building stones and decorative rock work.

Spruce Pine Pegmatite: Spruce Pine Pegmatite is an igneous intrusive rock with large crystals of feldspar, quartz and mica. The rock was formed ~320–380 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era. North Carolina is the largest source of feldspar in the United States and Spruce Pine is considered the rock and mineral capital of North Carolina. The surrounding area contains numerous mines with valuable resources, including the Spruce Pine Pegmatite.

For more information on the natural history of North Carolina see page 8.

photo by Roger Shew

This view looks from youngest Coastal Plain rocks, beginning with Fort Fisher Coquina in the east, moving across the state to the Blue Ridge rocks and ending with Spruce Pine Pegmatite at the western end.

The rain garden and streambed appear to the right in the the image.

Carolina Wilmington campus. Roger would be happy to lead tours but the garden is open and accessible at any time. Once there are informational signs added, the garden will be somewhat self-guiding. The path is easily accessible through the garden and is wheelchair friendly, but visitors should be careful of a few slightly uneven surfaces with pebbles. Visitors should not climb on the rocks although leaning on them and studying them is fine.

political science and environmental science with a concentration in conservation. She is an intern with Going Green through UNCW’s Environmental Sciences Department.

The GeoGarden presents a unique opportunity to view how geology differs across North Carolina. If you are interested in seeing this wonderful garden, be sure to visit the UNCW campus!

The UNCW campus is located at 601 South College Road in Wilmington, North Carolina.

The GeoGarden is next to DeLoach Hall, just past Kenan Auditorium.

How to visit the GeoGarden

Roger Shew is in the Earth and Ocean Sciences and Environmental Sciences Departments at UNCW.

The GeoGarden is located next to DeLoach Hall on the University of North

Ally Zimmerman is a senior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington studying

www.issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

photo by Valerie Robertson

The cistern, or large rain barrel, at the western end of the GeoGarden collects stormwater from the roof of DeLoach Hall. A solar-powered pump helps move the water through a hose to water plants in the rain garden during periods of little or no rain.

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geology Natural History (continued from page 8) sandstones were forming offshore during this time. These eroded sediments and offshore deposits formed the Coastal Plain.

The Coastal Plain is dominated by rocks that range from the Cretaceous to sediments moving today in our rivers and on our beaches.

Several important rock resources were formed in the shallow marine waters in this interval of time, including the Castle Hayne Limestone (40 million years ago); it is a significant source of aggregate and a very good aquifer. Another important Coastal Plain resource occurs near Aurora where

University of North Carolina Wilmington Wins U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Award The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) was one of only five colleges and universities nationwide to be awarded the 2021 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Sustainability Award. The award recognizes institutions that have and are continuing to incorporate sustainability practices that include stormwater management, energy and water conservation, campus-wide recycling and composting and more. In addition, the Department of Education cited UNCW’s efforts to “incorporate sustainable initiatives that focus on student experiences that provide opportunities for hands-on experiences that are important to career

opportunities and to more engaged citizens.”

Federal and state education officials visited UNCW, D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy and Wrightsville Beach Elementary as part of a three-day Green Strides Tour celebrating the 2021 Green Ribbon award winners.

The U.S. Department of Education recognized the three schools for their innovative efforts to reduce environmental impact, utility costs, improve health and wellness, and provide effective sustainability education. In all, 40 institutions or school districts across the country were honored as Green Ribbon schools.

photo by Valerie Robertson

The fossil pit in the GeoGarden contains a variety of the typical rocks and fossils from the Aurora Quarry. The rocks are mostly limestones and sandy limestones, but there are also samples of the black phosphate rocks that are mined as a resource. The fossils include coral, mollusk shells, mammal vertebrae and a variety of shark teeth.

Digging through the fossil pit may yield a quality fossil for someone to take home. See article on page 9.

phosphate from the Pliocene and Miocene (2–15 million years ago) is mined. The quarry is even better known for the presence of excellent marine fossils including whale vertebra, mollusks, gastropods and the large Carcharodon megalodon teeth.

One of the very important parts of the history of the Coastal Plain is the ever-changing shoreline. Sea level rise and fall have helped to form and modify the Coastal Plain Province over time. Numerous ancient shorelines are visible on the Coastal Plain on topographic and remote sensing maps. In fact, just 18,000 years ago, sea level was lower by ~400 feet during the last maximum glaciation event. You would have had to drive east 50 miles or so to be “at the beach.”

Sea level has risen since that time, and our current shoreline with its extensive barrier islands was in place several thousand years ago. Sea level is rising today, and along with storms, continuing to modify our beaches.

photo courtesy of Office of University Relations, Jeff Janowski Janowskij@uncw.edu.

UNCW Sustainability Peer Educators and Chancellor Jose Sartarelli hold a Postsecondary Sustainability Award from the U.S. Department of Education recognizing the university as a Green Ribbon School.

From left, Peer Educators Maiya Baum, Logan Thompson, Annie O’Neill and Andrew Lemon; Jose Sartarelli; U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools Director Andrea Suarez Falken; UNCW Chief Sustainability Officer Kat Pohlman; and Earth and Ocean Sciences Lecturer Roger Shew. Photo was taken at the GeoGarden where a stormwater management site is located.

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The changes in elevation, soils and rocks, and even differences in the weather have led to the physiographic provinces having unique flora and fauna. This is another story to tell.

Roger Shew is in the Earth and Ocean Sciences and Environmental Sciences Departments at UNCW. www.issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen

renewable energy

The Power of Solar: Solar Energy at the University of North Carolina Wilmington

by Ally Zimmerman North Carolina has significant potential for solar energy. In the United States, North Carolina is one of the top leaders in solar generation.1 The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) has started implementing solar panels throughout campus in an effort to support solar energy. Despite solar not being a main energy source at UNCW, solar power can be found around campus, often in places you wouldn’t even expect!2 Outside Randall Library, two solar umbrellas have been installed that allow people to charge USB devices. These umbrellas show users how much solar energy is being stored.3 There are also solar-powered cross-city trail signs, a solar-powered GPS on bicycles for UNCW’s bike-sharing program, solar trash compactors and a solar heating system to maintain pool temperatures at UNCW’s Recreation Center.2 Additionally, there’s a solar panel located in the DeLoach GeoGarden powering a rain barrel that sends water to native plants in the garden. See page 11 for an image of the DeLoach GeoGarden

solar panel and to learn more about the GeoGarden.

Various departments and groups at UNCW work to support efforts to encourage solar energy on campus. Annie O’Neill, a UNCW Sustainability Peer Educator, says, “the UNC system has a goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 … one of the ways we want to approach that here at UNCW is through switching to renewable energy sources.”

UNCW Sustainability works to support and implement sustainable practices on campus. Peer Educators play a vital role in supporting these various sustainable practices and encouraging sustainability throughout campus. “Peer educators serve as a bridge between the Office of Sustainability and the rest of the UNCW community,” says O’Neill.

In fall 2021 the UNCW Office of Sustainability and the Student Government Association ran a Tealstarter, titled “UNCW Run on the Sun,” to raise money for solar panels on campus. O’Neill, who worked on the Tealstarter, says “the goal of the Tealstarter was to get the campus community excited about solar energy.” The campaign raised $2,655 to put towards solar energy on campus!4 Tealstarter is UNCW’s official proprietary crowdfunding platform, serving as a fundraising tool used by various UNCW groups such as student organizations, departments and more.5

photo by Shelby Diehl

Each solar umbrella is equipped with three charging ports at the base and features an LED display that shows how much solar energy is currently stored.

Ally Zimmerman is a senior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington studying political science and environmental science with a concentration in conservation. She is an intern with Going Green through UNCW’s Environmental Sciences Department.

For more information about solar energy and sustainability efforts on the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s campus, visit uncw.edu/sustainability/.

Resources 1

photo by Shelby Diehl

Solar umbrellas have been installed in front of Randall Library on the UNCW campus.

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https://www.duke-energy.com/ourcompany/environment/renewable-energy/ solar-energy/solar-power-in-nc 2 https://uncw.edu/sustainability/energy. html 3 https://library.uncw.edu/news/ new_solar_umbrellas 4 https://crowdfunding.uncw.edu/ project/27381 5 https://crowdfunding.uncw.edu/about

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uncw travel

UNCW Group Trip to Iceland Influences Sustainability in the Cape Fear

by Shelby Diehl She’d led similar trips before, but only in the summer, never in winter. In early 2020, Amy Long, an environmental science professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), was inspired to lead a class to Iceland with The GREEN Program that December. However, this time her plans were delayed by the pandemic for almost two years. Then, in December 2021, she finally had the chance to embark for Iceland alongside seven UNCW students.

But what is The GREEN Program? The GREEN Program (TGP) is an award-winning, experiential education program focused on the world’s most pressing problems in sustainable development. The minorityand woman-owned business centers their programs around the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and balances sustainability-focused course work, exclusive industry exposure and bucket-list adventures in just 8 to 10 days.

“I first learned about TGP from an upper-classman who had taken their Iceland program back in 2015,” said Long.

“I was looking for an applied learning opportunity to extend the course content of EVS 195 and/or 205 and TGP fit the bill.

Good track record; shared goals and objectives; student endorsement; and safety of the country and trained guides all influenced my decision to partner with them.

I was fortunate enough to attend a faculty recruiting trip in June 2016 to see the program in action first-hand. Not only did I fall in love with the country, but working with Melissa Lee’s TGP and Iceland and Midgard [Base Camp] gave me the confidence to build custom program extensions for UNCW students from their existing program.”

Iceland is among five destinations offered by the company with more planned in the near-future. The Iceland program’s aim is to discover the successes and challenges of Iceland given that the country

sources nearly 100% of its energy from renewable energy. Additionally, students witness the effects of climate change firsthand, gain exclusive access into Iceland’s renewable energy and biofuel industries and hike through Iceland’s highlands.

The GREEN Program Experience On Sunday, December 12, 2021, students arrived in the western region’s Keflavik airport and drove east to their first destination, Hotel Hjarðarból. The students explored the grazing lands and snow-capped mountains nearby while they became acquainted. After dinner, the students formed groups to brainstorm their capstone projects—assignments that act as a culmination of an academic and/or intellectual experience.

The group spent their first morning at Reykjavik University (RU) touring the civil and energy labs, having lectures from professors at RU and walking along the waters of Nauthólsvík Geothermal Beach. That afternoon, the students visited Hellisheiði Power Station where they saw a geothermal power plant firsthand. Their day ended with a hike to a geothermal river—guided by headlamps, given that sunset was at 3:30 p.m.—through valleys and along mountainsides.

“As a rather shy person not having any friends going with me, the beginning of the program was, quite frankly, a little terrifying,” said Jess Elliott, a UNCW junior.

“The excitement levels were palpable when the group did a round of introductions, and although the group became more comfortable around each other, I think the excitement remained throughout the day, and the whole trip.”

On the third day, students explored the Golden Circle, a popular route featuring Iceland’s most visited attractions: Gullfoss Falls, Strokkur geyser and Þingvellir National Park. The route included (continued on page 15)

photo by Neha Awasthi

The GREEN Program students hike to the top of Sólheimajökull glacier in southern Iceland, located between the volcanoes Katla and Eyjafjallajökull.

* EVS 195/205: EVS is UNCW’s code for courses offered by their Environmental Sciences department.

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Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

uncw travel Iceland (continued) a stop at Friðheimar, a greenhouse/restaurant specializing in tomato delicacies such as tomato soup and tomato cheesecake.

Their final stop was the Ljósafoss hydropower plant where students explored its educational exhibit.

The next day, the GREENies—students of The GREEN Program—navigated the crevasses, rugged ridges and sinkholes of Sólheimajökull, a glacier between the Katla and Eyjafjallajökull volcanoes, eventually reaching the top.

“Seeing the clear ice beneath my feet and understanding the unique effects of the volcanic ash on Icelandic glaciers made the experience truly once in a lifetime,” said Elliott, “and a memory that I will call to mind often.”

Afterward, they visited an Iceland soil conservation visitor center where they learned about the history of soil and Iceland and ongoing efforts to reclaim land.

Thórsmörk, also called “Thor’s valley,” was next on the itinerary. The journey consisted of crossing rivers and stopping at a stunning canyon covered in moss with a river rushing through it. Their final destination was a cabin deep in Thórsmörk

where they set up base and explored with the remaining daylight: some took hikes up neighboring mountains; others played in the snow outside of the hostel.

of an abrupt stop. It would have been a big adjustment going from being with 30 people in a different country to home by yourself all in one sweep.”

The next morning, the students explored Stakkholtsgja Canyon in Thórsmörk, where they spent a couple of hours hiking the rocky riverbed to its end.

The next morning consisted of a beautiful sunrise; it was the first day of the whole trip that it wasn’t overcast. The group drove to Vatnajökull National Park and hiked to Svartifoss, a waterfall with hexagonal rock formations. Jökulsárlón Glacial Lagoon proceeded and was followed by the neighboring Diamond Beach.

That night, they enjoyed a home-cooked Christmas meal by their hosts at the Iceland Bike Farm.

“The most memorable part of the trip for me was when we visited Thórsmörk,” said Sarah Brazil, a UNCW senior. “I really enjoyed the solitude of hiking all spread out but tagging along with buddies as you pleased. . . . At the end of the trail was a cave with rocks to climb and a waterfall to find. Sitting up on the rock inside that cave was very powerful. . . . It was like seeing all the elements work together in one place.”

The students continued on over riverbed and past glaciers, volcanoes and expansive grazing plains. Eventually, they found themselves at Seljalandsfoss. The end of their day was spent at a black sand beach with a shipwreck.

On their final day with The GREEN Program, students completed their capstone projects and presented them to their peers. With their coursework completed, the group ended their night with a bonfire in a small patch of forest, one of the few that still exist in Iceland. The newfound friends connected on deep, emotional levels beneath the full moon while embracing what was the bittersweet end to the experience of a lifetime.

The UNCW Extension But this wasn’t the end for the UNCW cohort. While GREENies headed for the airport, the UNCW students were led east by their guide, Stefán Hrafnkelsson, with Midgard Base Camp. On the way to their lodging, the Iceland Bike Farm, they stopped at Kvernufoss waterfall and Reynisfjara, a renowned black sand beach. Then, they explored the ice caves of Katla. That night, they were treated to the vibrant, dancing bands of the Northern Lights. photo by Jess Elliott

Shelby Diehl poses in front of Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall in southern Iceland that visitors can walk all the way around.

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The next day, the students had a lesson on carbon sequestration in Iceland’s coastal wetlands from one of their Bike Farm hosts. Following this was a tour of the Iceland Bike Farm: farm animals, horses and the family’s personal hydropower generators. The crew said goodbye to the farm and headed for the promontory Dyrhólaey—a point of high land that juts out into a large body of water. Then, they spent the remainder of their night at an ax-throwing tavern, laughing and dancing their final night away.

On their last day, the UNCW group drove to Reykjavik to explore the city.

Everyone had their thing they wanted to see: for some, it was the viking history and the historic Hallgrímskirkja (church of Hallgrimur); for others, it was quaint local businesses. Snow flurries danced around them as they reconvened at Harpa, a famed concert hall. From there, the students headed to the airport and boarded flights chasing the sunset home.

Back in the Cape Fear The students will reconvene back home at UNCW during finals week in May 2022 to engage in their EVS 431 “Iceland: Sustainable & Renewable Energies, Industry, and Tourism” coursework. The class is planning to apply what they learned from their hosts at the Iceland Bike Farm to the Cape Fear region, specifically UNCW.

“I felt like breaking away from the whole group made the trip end easier,” said Brazil. “It was like it faded out instead

“We are still testing the equipment, but once we have it running, the plan is

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(continued on page 16

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uncw travel Iceland (continued) to select several sites on campus selected from the master plan document to determine carbon sequestration potential,” said Long. “Using the CO2 sensor and photosynthesis measurer, we will measure the climate mitigation potential of our natural areas and report our findings to UNCW Sustainability to help inform the UNCW Climate Resiliency Plan.”

The UNCW Climate Resiliency Plan (CRP) plan aims to address the anticipated hazards related to climate resiliency at UNCW and to build further partnerships locally, regionally and globally to further strengthen their mission. The development of the plan has been collaborative from its inception with students and professors alike having helped write the plan.

“Knowing how vital our natural areas are, it is critical that they are properly managed,” said Long. “We currently are not maintaining Bluethenthal properly (the understory is overgrown with invasive and non-native species, hindering forest regeneration of the overstory species) or our Longleaf Pine savannas with frequent low-intensity controlled burns. I hope our readings are the baseline to a long-term ecological study of the campus natural resources and my students in the future can continue the work to see positive or negative change in carbon sequestration.”

But for Long and her students, while they understand their contributions to campus will have a lasting effect, the deepest impact comes from the memories of their time abroad.

“Even long before this trip, Iceland has always been my dream destination, so to be able to combine my travel dreams and educational interest was the perfect opportunity for me,” said Elliott. “I signed up for the trip in a single day and am so glad I did as I met so many amazing people that are still in my life, and explored many different career opportunities. I loved this trip so much I’m actually looking for internships in Iceland for after I graduate.”

photo by Stefán Hrafnkelsson

UNCW students visiting Diamond Beach, a strip of black sand beach covered with huge glistening glacial fragments that have broken off of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacial tongue in eastern Iceland.

From left, Dillon Roberts, Sarah Brazil, Amy Long, Shelby Diehl, Marley Smith, Jess Elliott, Katy Johnson and Melissa Hastings.

gotten smaller as my time went on here at UNCW, and it felt refreshing to spend time with so many new people. This will help me take bigger risks and leaps in my future because I know it will all work out in the end—probably better than I could’ve expected too.”

With the remainder of the semester, students “will get together during finals week for a final reflection of the course,” said Long. “We’ll put my Icelandic cooking skills to the test and share the research

results and maybe Zoom with the TGP students as well.”

To learn more about The GREEN Program, visit thegreenprogram.com.

Shelby Diehl is a junior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington studying environmental science with a concentration in conservation and creative writing with a certificate in publishing. She is a Going Green intern and an alumni of The GREEN Program, having attended the trip discussed in her article.

Sustainable Development Goals

“The lasting impact has been the ability to trust myself and make friends with strangers,” said Brazil. “My circle had

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality and spur economic growth—all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests. These 17 SDGs form the basis of The GREEN Program described on page 14.

Learn more about the goals at https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda.

— source: https://sdgs.un.org

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green business

morrow Plastic Is Drowning the Planet—Ocean Friendly plants, using Establishments Are Here to Save It less chemical yward

repellents, and That is Shelby Diehl food frustra- byproviding forPlastic you and is drowning the planet and this your family and of the ignorance of coris, in part, because e you neighbors. porations and their contracted businesses y you neglecting the need to reduce their waste. d with Enter Ocean Friendly Establishments (OFE), at a community-based certification that gives ad that reduce plasticyou anda way Foodscaping not their only offers e—such businesses practice sustainable options the recognito reduce the transport cost of food, it also ving tion they deserve. provides you with an easy way to teach very children about gardening.

We,inas2015 a society, wer The initiative was launched reachedwith a point where gardening t the in have partnership OFE’s parent orga- is no longer a task that Project. is passed down ow nization, Plastic Ocean The firstfrom generation to generation.

Most children certified establishment was the Blockade do notinknow where their food comes Wrightsville Beach, North cality Runner from.

Actually, most college students Carolina, and the program has since ex- do t the not know where their food comes from. d Nor do they know the first thing about deal planting. If edible plants are integrated nt and into areas where children and others foothave readily available access—like public ugula, parks, schools, churches, government plant way and buildings—it would be very hard for the next generation not to soak up a little bit ntrol of knowledge about growing their own se food. But this will only become a reality if e your we as the general gardening public make only foodscaping a social norm. also

panded across the country.

The non-profit has racked up over 200 ocean-friendly certified businesses from the east to west coasts, with over 100 of these in the Cape Fear Region alone, and ongoing efforts to establish OFEs in Alaska.

Ocean Friendly Establishments was founded based on concerns about the immense amount of plastic polluting photo © [Stéphane Bidouze] Adobe Stock the Earth. This is a selfThis lake is covered with plastic bottles. regulated initiative, and businesses are encouraged to ensure all Cate Arnold, the Community Outreach employees are educated about and adher- Committee Chair for the University of ing to the initiative. In an effort to reduce North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) Plastic plastic pollution nationwide, the owners Ocean Project Chapter. “We understand and managers of certified OFEs agree to that sustainability can be implemented reduce plastic waste in their businesses by at all different levels and in various ways, only serving straws upon request. so this star system helps us be inclusive and serves as motivation to be more Straws are just the start. Restaurants ocean-friendly.” and businesses that practice additional

eco-conscious practices can earn up to five stars based on how many actions they’re taking. These actions may include vegan or vegetarian menu options, bathrooms with es, and Learn more about Brie Arthur at www. air dryers, no styrofoam, and non-plastic briegrows.com. her and/or biodegradable bags, silverware, Shannon Bradburn is a senior at UNCW who food and beverage containers. For one star, loves to hike, study plants, and play outside. two to three criteria must be met whereas photo by Karly Lohan for five stars, 10+ criteria must be met.

We welcome guest contributors.

LalaWrite & Elmfor owners Erica, Alexis and Claire stand our contributor guidelines.

“The star rating has been a great inside their business holding their Ocean Friendly editor@ goinggreenpublications.com. system in our OFE certifications,” says Establishments certificate.

cture

-o.net

Greenspots North Carolina

Native Plant Society

Come for a nature walk www.ncwildflower.org Southeast Coast Chapter

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(continued on page 18)

v

Would you like an ad in Going Green? You can get started with us by placing a black & white Greenspots ad for only $50. Or use it to acknowledge someone’s graduation, birthday, anniversary, or other milestone!

greenspots

Help area birds!

Cape Fear Bird Observatory Needs your tax-deductible support!

see

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Congratulations Old Books on Front Street 40 Years of connecting good people with good books www.goinggreenpublications.com

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Wild

green business

Bird &

Garden

Sat., May 22: Painted Bunting Workshop 9:15-10:30 a.m.

Native Plant Sale 2:30–4:30 Sat., May 22:

Ocean Friendly Establishments (continued) a dedicated committee, the Community Outreach Committee, to support OFE. “This committee benefits the organization because it allows students to lend a helping hand and even poses the opportunity for student internships with the OFE team,” says Arnold. “Overall, the students also benefit by getting volunteer experience and expanding their own knowledge of incorporating ocean-friendly practices in a business.”

Painted Bunting Imagine the Possibilities Workshop in Your Backyard

Wild Bird & 9:15-10:30 Garden a.m.

Hanover Center Native Plant 3501 Oleander Drive Sale Wilmington NC 284032:30–4:30

910-343-6001 Imagine the Possibilities www.wildbirdgardeninc.com in Your Wild Backyard Bird Garden

Wild Bird & Garden Hanover Center 3501 Oleander Drive Wilmington NC 28403

910-343-6001

www.wildbirdgardeninc.com Wild Bird Garden

photo by Karly Lohan

Adapt Kitchen & Juice Bar owners Chris and Elie stand in front of their business holding their Ocean Friendly Establishments certificate.

Ocean Friendly Establishments is chapter-based, relying on their chapters to conduct outreach in their communities.

Their main chapter is located in Cape Fear, North Carolina, with chapters spanning up-and-down the North Carolina coast and beyond. But these chapters are just the start, with chapters expanding into Canada, this initiative is becoming practiced across the globe.

“Establishing multiple chapters has expanded the reach of our mission across the North Carolina coast and beyond,” says Karly Lohan, an OFE committee member and coordinator. “These relationships also provide excellent volunteer and networking opportunities to our student volunteers with UNCW Plastic Ocean Project and Cape Fear Community College Plastic Ocean Project Chapters, who contribute so much to our program.”

Cape Fear Community College’s Plastic Ocean Project chapter was founded within the past couple years with the mission of supporting the main organization with outreach initiatives in the Cape Fear region. The UNCW Plastic Ocean Project chapter has been long established with 18 www.goinggreenpublications.com

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

Ocean Friendly Establishments’ impact on the community is renowned, seen in the number of businesses and restaurants they’ve reached and influenced in North Carolina and beyond. The self-regulated mindsets help build habits in not just the business owners, but in the employees and guests who frequent these locations.

And in the end, breaking plastic habits can create a vast wave of change, saving our planet as a result.

“Addressing the plastic waste is more important now than ever because we have the technology and research to show us the negative impacts that plastic pollution has on our communities, bodies, and environments,” says Lohan. “We have a responsibility to use that information and act as good stewards of the environment for our generation, but more importantly future generations. Researchers have predicted there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by the year 2050; that is not a statistic we can ignore.”

For more about Ocean Friendly Establishments, visit oceanfriendlyest.com.

Shelby Diehl is a junior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington studying environmental science with a concentration in conservation and creative writing with a certificate in publishing. She is a Going Green intern and plans to pursue a career in environmental writing that will allow her to advocate for environmental causes worldwide.

Going Green welcomes editorial contributions from the community. If you have an environmental story you’d like to tell, contact us and we’ll email you our “Contributor Guidelines.” Email Publisher@GoingGreenPublications.com or call (910) 547-4390. www.issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen

parks

Coastal Eco Explorer: Your Interactive Digital Pocket Guide to Park Wildlife

by Avery Owen Imagine hiking a trail at your favorite state park, surrounded by stunning landscapes, plants and animals that you wish that you could learn more about. Now, imagine that there is a free and easy-touse tool that can provide this information alongside educational videos about the species and habitats you see before you.

This is Coastal Eco Explorer (CEE): a mobile application that provides visitors of Carolina Beach State Park and Fort Fisher State Recreation Area a digital pocket guide to ecosystems, flora and fauna native to Southeastern North Carolina.

Available any time and anywhere, CEE extends the accessibility of the park and allows users to experience a self-guided tour

Ecosystem modules provide users with videos featuring a park ranger and options to explore the flora and fauna that call that ecosystem home.

in person or from home. As the first of its kind in any state park, CEE accommodates the digital era while delivering engaging outdoor content.

The app’s inspiration was seeded by an island ecology course offered at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) instructed by two of the app’s creators: Dr. Amy Taylor and Dr. Dennis Kubasko of UNCW’s Watson College of Education. The course guides students through field-based explorations of local ecology and history. Students use these experiences to develop web-based K–12 integrated lesson plans featuring flora and fauna. Using these as the foundation for the content, Drs. Taylor and Kubasko teamed with Dr. Lucas Layman of the UNCW Department of Computer Science, graduate student Kinsley Sigmund and undergraduate student Avery Owen to create the mobile app.

The Coastal Eco Explorer’s interactive map can display the user’s location in relation to nearby features and ecosystems.

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“We saw a need for a mobile companion in the Carolina Beach State Park,” said Dr. Kubasko, “something that supported the visual observations of park guests and guided them to explore deeper. With the help of our island ecology students, we further refined existing content local to the park for the purpose of education and exploration.”

Dr. Kubasko, Dr. Taylor and Ms. Owen collaborated with NC State Park Rangers to select the flora, fauna and ecosystems to be featured in the app. The app’s prototype featured three ecosystems and eighteen species. As of February 2022 the educational content included eleven ecosystems and forty-five species from Carolina Beach State Park and Fort Fisher State Recreation Area.

Educational content, no matter how engaging, must be accessible in a userfriendly app design. Dr. Lucas Layman and Ms. Sigmund worked to create and sustain the Coastal Eco Explorer’s mobile application as a unique platform delivering locally relevant ecology content to users.

CEE’s launch screen invites users to browse a complete list of park ecosystems and to explore the park using the platform’s interactive map.

Upon selecting the map, users can view their current location, park trails and locations of featured sites. Dr. Layman symbolized five types of notable features—flora, fauna, ecosystems, structures and featured sites—with differing visual pins on the map. Ecosystems appear as purple regions on the map encompassing their corresponding areas. If granted access to a device’s location, the app detects when the user enters an ecosystem and (continued on page 20

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19

parks Coastal Eco Explorer (continued) provides a notification directing the user to an information page about the flora and fauna of said ecosystem.

Content pages for featured ecological points of interest include taxonomy, descriptions, habitat information and conservation information. Simply by walking, tapping and swiping, app users can gain easy access to a broad knowledge about local wildlife.

“The Coastal Eco Explorer mobile application is an interdisciplinary success that demonstrates how computing can be a service to the Cape Fear community,” said Dr. Layman. “The engineering challenges in creating the app also created an excellent learning experience for students and faculty at UNCW.” Since 2018, the NC State Park Rangers at Carolina Beach State Park and Fort Fisher State Recreation Area have been essential in the shaping of Coastal Eco Explorer. When the creators proposed adding videos featuring rangers sharing lessons about native ecosystems, Park Superintendents Chris Helms and Jeff Owen were glad to offer their expertise to the prototype.

A UNCW videography team filmed Mr. Helms and Mr. Owen on-site at more than ten ecosystems, including the pine savanna, salt marsh and lily pond. These ranger-guided tour videos were incorporated into the app’s ecosystem landing pages, now serving as a warm welcome for users entering specific habitats.

The videos are also available on the Coastal Eco Explorer website—an exten-

Scan the QR codes using your mobile device to easily download the app for free.

sion of the app’s resources. The website (uncw.edu/ed/coastalecoexplorer) houses app download links, trail video experiences and over one hundred educational web pages and lesson plans created by UNCW students and reviewed by faculty.

These resources are designed to offer extra support to educators utilizing the app as a teaching tool.

Coastal Eco Explorer’s creators are excited about expanding the app’s scope to include more of the forty state parks and recreation areas across North Carolina.

Continued collaboration with NC State Park Rangers will expand the reach of the app’s impact and encourage the use of the resource to enhance visitor experience.

Future app expansions, including interactive games and quizzes, will contribute to the user experience.

Carolina Beach State Park Superintendent Chris Helms adds, “I’m very proud to be associated with the Coastal Eco Explorer mobile application. We’ve

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Coastal Eco Explorer is now available for free download on IOS and Android devices. Visit uncw.edu/ed/coastalecoexplorer for additional information, videos and lesson plans.

Avery Owen is a May 2021 graduate of UNCW in environmental science and geospatial technologies. She serves as an Assistant County Ranger for the North Carolina Forest Service in Randolph County.

Inaugural State of the River Forum Cape Fear River Watch (CFRW) will hold its inaugural State of the River forum on June 1, 2022. The event will be in the beautiful Windell Daniels Hall overlooking the Cape Fear River at Cape Fear Community College’s Union Station.

The event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. with vegetarian and vegan breakfast and lunch options available.

Vegan Eco-Friendly Salon

all seen technological advances in many facets of life, and now here’s the next-level approach to environmental education that our park visitors have been waiting for. The timing could not have been more perfect as the advent of pandemic meant more people in parks and outdoor spaces, but less in-person interactions with rangers or other educators. It is so satisfying to see literal years of effort by UNCW students and leaders be transformed into this resource for visitors to Carolina Beach State Park and provide a model for expansion in additional parks in the future.”

The primary goals for this event are to educate the public and decision-makers, and to effect change. To that end, CFRW is inviting the public, but also local, regional and state elected officials, leadership from the DEQ, nonprofit leaders in environCape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

mental advocacy and law, North Carolina researchers, utilities, farmers and fisherfolk.

Organizers think this event will provide attendees a useful opportunity to learn from experts, but more importantly, it will provide a venue and the time built into the program for networking and brainstorming among the people who understand the issues first-hand, and those who can get things done to effect positive change.

Please register at https://bit.ly/3iqxruc.

Space is limited, so secure your seat today.

Learn more about Cape Fear River Watch at capefearriverwatch.org. www.issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen

environmental education

Wrightsboro Teacher Wins Hog Island Scholarship Alyssa Langley, a fifth-grade teacher at Wrightsboro Elementary School in Castle Hayne, has been selected by Cape Fear Audubon to attend a special summer program for educators at National Audubon’s Hog Island Camp in mid-coast Maine.

“Langley was awarded the scholarship in recognition of her accomplishments in engaging students in science inquiry,” said Jim Nesbit, president of the Cape Fear Audubon chapter. The scholarship covers room, board and other costs during Educator’s Week at the camp.

To be eligible, applicants must be elementary school educators who teach science in the local Cape Fear area, and demonstrate a passion about teaching science.

“Langley’s winning accomplishments included organizing her school’s participation in Discover the Wonders of Birds—a

project designed for fourth graders by Cape Fear Audubon. Langley has also demonstrated science leadership by serving as her school’s assistant coach for Science Olympiad and, on a regional level, developing curricula for Carolina Oceans Studies,” Nesbit said.

In her classroom, Langley uses handson science projects, STEM challenges and frequent connections to everyday life to engage students and foster a lifelong love of learning.

The Hog Island camp provides teachers like Langley a chance to learn new approaches and find added inspiration for engaging both children and adults with nature. The program includes multidisciplinary workshops and several field outings, including boat trips to observe restored seabird nesting colonies.

Details about the Hog Island Camp are available at the following website:

contributed photo

Alyssa Langley is the winner of a scholarship to attend a Hog Island summer program for educators.

https://hogisland.audubon.org/programs/ sharing-nature-educator’s-week.

Cape Fear Audubon (CFA), a non-profit organization, is an affiliate of Audubon North Carolina and the National Audubon Society. Details about chapter activities are available at capefearaudubon.org. CFA also maintains a Facebook page.

WHOLE WATER SOLUTIONS

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Local Residential Reverse Osmosis You Can Count On!

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Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

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21

green walls your ecological house™ Green Wall – continued Climate Chaos, Food Chaos and War space. One of the tenants will be the Wilmington-based software

“Ukraine has only compounded a catastrophe on top of a catastrophe.”

overconsumption, tribalism, nationalism Russia andbeer Belarus company Untappd, creatorAlso, of the popular app.together acand aggression. So ancient ethnic rivalries count for almost 20% of global fertilizer exIt’s Mott’s hope that, through the success of this green wall, in, say, Syria, erupt into civil war when ports. Both countries are sanctioned, and they will grow in popularity in our area. And that way, more drought, exacerbated by climate change, will likely stop those exports altogether.

— David M. Beasley, Director building occupants will enjoy the health and aesthetic benefits of causes severe shortages and competition U.N. World Food Program So future. those poor countries from Egypt to systems like these in the near for food.

India—which, in great measure because Although Steve Mott has once again proclaimed himself to be Climate change is the backdrop to While wars over resources are nothing of climate change, need to import some retired, you may be able to reach him through his website, www. everything on the global stage. new, they’ll surely become more common or almost all their food—can no longer mottlandscaping.com.

So, when we discuss the burgeoning as populations grow and resources shrink, buy breadbasket grain and, without food crisis that’s causing hunger-driven in no small measure due to climate change. fertilizer, will struggle to grow their own. instability in much of the developing world And war creates its own shortages, which Meanwhile, China lost one third of this and price inflation everywhere, we are can foster more political instability, includ- spring’s wheat crop to climate-changespeaking in the context of global warming. ing new wars. amplified flooding, so it will compete All of the other factors contributing to with poorer countries for shrinking grain Which brings us to the crisis du jour, agricultural disruption—desertification, supplies. Food prices in import-dependent the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its pandemics, war—are exacerbated by the countries will skyrocket, and political likely effect on global food security. erratic weather, flooding and droughts instability will surely follow. photo by Valerie Robertson When I was a boy, my mother explained linked to climate change.

Each plant in the wall lives in its original pot, which is placed directly in its Prior to the latest war shock, the global that Germany andwill Russia had fought over tray. Now, The plants will grow towards thethe light, so maintenance of the wall if climate change were only food-safety system was already teetering centuries include a monthly global task of removing each pot byithand,Ukraine turning itfor 180 degrees, because it’s the factor affecting food production, on the brink of collapse. The U.N.’s World “breadbasket of Europe,” where enough and putting it back in place. might be manageable, at least for a while.

Food Program (UNWFP), which feeds 125 wheat is grown to feed the populations of If, for example, dry conditions worsened million people per day, will now have to from the City of Wilmington Tree Commission those for Outstanding countries. Indeed, in 2021 Ukraine gradually and somewhat sporadically cut rations for 3.8 million people. “We’ll be Function Design at the New Hanover Regionalaccounted Medical Center for 9% of the world’s wheat around the world, there might be time for taking food from the hungry to give to the Betty Cameron Women’s and Children’s Centerexports, (a rooftop garden while Russia, the other participant the global to take measures starving,” said UNWFP Director David M. that can becommunity visited by patients and their families). in Putin’s “special military operation” in the to reduce the disruption and eventually Beasley. breadbasket, contributed 19%.

What was it about this project adapt—assuming it decided to actthat like pulled Mott out of retireOf course, it’s possible that there will ment for whatand wasaddress obviously to involve a lotNot of time and Unless there is an imthis year. a community thegoing common be a ceasefire in Ukraine and international effort? mediate ceasefire, it would take a minor threat. Fossil fuels could be mostly elimifood markets will temporarily stabilize— Forwhile one thing, the sheer complexity projectfor wasUkraine entic- to get even a tiny nated drought-tolerant grains wereof themiracle allowing climate change to reclaim cenfraction its spring ing.

It was new different and challenging.

“I had toof learn an wheat planted, and developed and and water-conservation meater stage in the global food crisis at our any wheat that’s awful lot. I mean I’d done this kind of work forever, but still this harvested will likely go sures taken. ecological house. to feeding Ukrainians. That’s also true for is a new system I haven’t Also just But that’s not how it’sused... playing out.

Asthe logistics of it, you photo by © Philip S. Valerie Wenz,Robertson 2022 Ukraine’s 16% in ofathe world’s corn exports. know.

Building something herewith is like building a ship warming proceeds apace, itinside interacts A scissor lift was used to allow placement of the plants.

And while Russia can probably plant and bottle.

It was complex enough to be interesting.”

S. reached Wenz writes about the environment The Philip lift only 22 feet, so Mott had to place a and amplifies the vestigial destabilizing harvest grain, its ability to export it will be ladder and related topics.

Visit his blog on top of the platform shown atat thefirebirdtop of this Evenofmore important, though, aspects human civilization we’vethis thusproject was an opportuseverely hampered by the international photo, in order to reach the last several feet of wall. journal.com. nity for him to prove that such a complicated project could be far failed to address: overpopulation, sanctions she’s under. very successful. And he was concerned that if a green wall were attempted but were not a success, that might be the end of using green wall technology in Wilmington. But he was confident Herbs • Vegetables he could make it work. “If it’s successful and it gets some of the Natives notoriety I think it’s going to get, you’ll see a lot of them, maybe Butterfly & Bee Plants not this big. This is a major undertaking in anybody’s book.” He believes that the success of his green wall will encourage others.

340 Goodman Road, Leland

Mott plans to put together information on the newly completed green wall, enough so that people will have documentation on how it was created. What he’d really like is to put together a class to teach what he’s learned to people who are eager to learn.

Who will get to visit the wall every day? As floors of the building are finished, the building will be rented out as office Spring 2017 22 www.goinggreenpublications.com

910-253-5964

Year-Round • M-Sat 8-5 web page: LocalHarvest.org www.sheltonherbfarm.com www.sheltonherbfarmnc.com A Century Farm & Bird Friendly Business

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

Cape Fear’s Going Green 5 www.issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen

local seasonal food

Recipes Fresh Vegetable Spring Rolls Servings: 2 • Prep time: 45 minutes

Ingredients—Rolls • 6 sheets rice paper • 1 carrot, cut in matchsticks • 1 cucumber, seeded and cut into matchsticks • 1 red pepper, thinly sliced • 1/2 cup red cabbage, thinly sliced • 1 avocado, sliced • 1/2 cup baby spinach • 6 large basil leaves (Shelton Herb Farm, Leland, NC) Ingredients—Peanut Sauce • 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter • 1 Tbsp. coconut aminos • 2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice • 1 tsp. maple syrup • 1 tsp. chili garlic sauce • 1/2 tsp. ginger, grated • 1/4 cup water (use as needed) Instructions—Peanut Sauce In a mixing bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, coconut aminos, lime juice, maple syrup, chili garlic sauce and ginger.

Slowly whisk in as much water as needed to achieve a creamy consistency. Pour into a serving dish and set aside.

Instructions—Spring Rolls Prepare all spring roll vegetables as follows and line them up for easy assembly. Cut the carrot and cucumber into matchsticks.

Slice the red pepper, cabbage and avocado.

Fill a wide bowl with water. Dip one piece of rice paper at a time in the water for a few seconds to soften and lay on a flat surface.

In the center of the wrap, layer the avocado slices, spinach leaves, red pepper, carrots, cabbage and cucumber. Top with one large basil leaf.

Carefully roll the bottom of the sheet tightly around the vegetables and then fold both sides of the wrap over towards the center.

Continue rolling the wrap completely to the top.

With a sharp knife, cut each roll in half diagonally and serve with the peanut sauce.

Original recipe and photo courtesy of Casey Nelson. She is a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach specializing in women’s health. Connect at caseynelsonwellness@gmail.com.

Welcome to Going Green’s recipe page, where we bring you new ideas for how to enjoy local and seasonal foods. For the purpose of this page, “local” includes North and South Carolina.

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Sources You can find the ingredients for this recipe in the international aisle of most large grocery stores.

New Saigon International Market is also a good source, located at 831 South Kerr Avenue in Wilmington: See www.facebook.com/ ilmsaigon/.

Ingredients Rice Paper—Casey suggests Star Anise Foods or Blue Dragon Brand. You may also substitute rainbow chard or napa cabbage leaves.

Peanut Sauce Options Creamy peanut butter can be substituted for almond butter.

Coconut aminos—Casey uses Big Tree Farm; Coconut Secret is another popular brand. You may substitute soy sauce or tamari if you prefer. “Coconut aminos is a sauce made from the nectar of the coconut blossom, commonly referred to as the sap. The sauce is made from tapping the unopened flowers of a coconut tree, then fermenting the resulting nectar with a little bit of salt added.“ * The tree is not harmed in the process. Many people use coconut aminos because they contain less sodium (90mg per teaspoon) than soy sauce (280mg per teaspoon).

Chili garlic sauce—Casey uses Organic Sriracha Hot Sauce by Yellowbird, available at Whole Foods. Hung Fong Chili Garlic Sauce is another popular brand. You may also substitute 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes. * Source: https://www.jessicagavin.com/coconut-aminos/

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festivals

2022 Wilmington Earth Day Festival Returns to Celebrating Outdoors in the Park

Wilmington Earth Day Alliance invites you to the annual Wilmington Earth Day Festival on Saturday, April 23, from noon to 6:00 p.m. in Long Leaf Park. It’s a fun-filled afternoon of live music, good food and environmental information and activities for the whole family—and it’s free!

at Legion Sports Complex, making it a perfect weekend to come to Wilmington for both events. Free parking and shuttles from satellite parking are planned.

This year’s theme is “Love Your Mother.” More than 50 environmentallyminded exhibitors and vendors will be there, explaining issues that affect our environment and illustrating how you can get involved.

“I am excited to welcome our community back to celebrating our environment after two years of being virtual,” said Festival Chair Matt Williams. “We will be in a new part of Long Leaf Park, between the new obstacle course and the splash pad, and cannot wait to share the hard work and ideas we’ve had brewing the last few years to make this festival fun for everyone involved.”

Enjoy live music and entertainment all day: Monica Jane at noon; children’s Nature Brigade Parade with the Rapping Red Oak at 1:45 p.m.; Cosmic Groove Lizards at 2:00 p.m.; drum circle with Community Drummers and Dancers at 3:45 p.m.; and The Pinkerton Raid at 4:00 p.m.

The Kids EcoZone will provide hands-on activities all day. Raffle prizes include a kayak made by Hurricane Kayak.

Food trucks will include Taqueria La Lillita, Webo Catering and Wheelz Pizza. Beverages available for purchase include beer from Bill’s Brewing Company, Wrightsville Beach Brewing Company and Edward Teach Brewery; wine from Noni Baca; kombucha from Panacea Brewing; and smoothies from Smart Smoothie.

Culligan will provide drinking water, and guests are encouraged to bring their own reusable water bottles for this. The festival is striving to be zero-waste: food scraps will be composted and festival beverage cups will be reusable. Food trucks will offer vegan and vegetarian options. They will serve their food in compostable packaging and use compostable cutlery.

24 www.goinggreenpublications.com

This year the festival joins forces with Wilmington VegFest (wilmingtonvegfest. com). Their event is on Sunday, April 24,

Festival sponsors will be Bill’s Brewing Company, Bootscrap Productions, Wrightsville Beach Brewing, Edward Teach Brewing, City of Wilmington Stormwater Services, New Hanover County Parks and Gardens, Hurricane Kayaks, Heal Our Waterways, Cape Fear’s Going Green, Might as Well Bar and Grill, Michael and Son, Coyle Solar, Great Outdoor Provision Co., Modern Sound and Staging, and Culligan Water.

For details visit www.wilmingtonearthday.com or call (910) 798-7130.

FlowILM Earth Day Celebration at the CAM Friday, April 22, 2022, 4–9 p.m.

FlowILM returns to the grounds of Cameron Art Museum featuring an array of artists, scientists, local non-profits and UNCW labs and programs focused on local and global water issues, including educational and family-oriented activities and more.

The event is free and open to the public.

The arts portion of the event will feature live performance, dance, sculpture, installation and light and sound work created by an array of artists and produced by the Coaction Lab at The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW).

This year’s event will expand on last year’s event themes, adding more art, science and ecology groups from across our community. Participating organizations will share their research and creativity with an array of family-friendly activities throughout the day from 4:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m., with the main art events running from 7:30 p.m. until 9 p.m.

FlowILM is produced by the Coaction Lab at UNCW in collaboration with the Algae Society, and is sponsored by the UNCW Office of the Arts and the UNCW Office of Community Engagement.

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

Participants and observers are invited to meander the museum grounds experiencing the symbiotic worlds of bio and ecological art, biomimicry, interactive systems and multi-sensory data translation.

For more information, see cameronartmuseum.org.

Oak Island 7th Annual Earth Day Festival Friday, April 22, 2022, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

Go Green this Earth Day with the Brunswick County Earth Day Event at Middleton Park on Oak Island. This free event will teach young and old how to protect and take care of our planet. Numerous area conservation groups will be on site.

There will be hands-on exhibits, displays, food and much more! School groups are invited and encouraged to attend. Tim the Pelican and Thomas the Barred Owl will be there with Sea Biscuit Wildlife Rescue.

Oak Island Earth Day Festival will be Friday, April 22, 2022 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. It will be at Middleton Park, 4610 E. Oak Island Drive, Oak Island, North Carolina. Call (910) 278-7475 for more information. www.issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen

festivals

Wilmington Vegfest Is Back and at Legion Sports Complex On Sunday, April 24, 2022, the community will be back together for Wilmington Vegfest. The last festival was in 2019, but the pandemic impacted the event, which is moving outdoors this year to its new location at the Legion Sports Complex.

The goal of the event is to educate the public about the benefits of adopting plant-based choices and to promote vegan-friendly businesses and organizations’ resources in the Wilmington area and beyond.

North Carolina Farmed Animal Save (NCSAVE) is presenting this year’s festival.

“We need to motivate the activists in the community to help the farmed animals,” shared Roxanne Kirtright, Founder of NCSAVE. “It’s about saving the animals and the environment and it will take an army to create the necessary changes to help save our planet.” Sign up to help at their booth at the event.

Festival-goers will be able to enjoy plant-based culinary delights, samples and

giveaways from vendors such as Superieur Electrolytes, The Wicked Vegans food truck, North Carolina Farmed Animal Save, Wild Earth and local favorite Panacea Brewing Company. Over 40 vendors will bring a variety of animal-friendly wellness and beauty products, apparel, health services, educational resources and more. A vendor list can be found on the event Facebook page or on wilmingtonvegfest.com.

“We are excited to be back in Wilmington,” Helene Greenberg, Executive Director of Triangle Vegfest shares, “We’ve missed the Wilmington community and can’t wait to share our festival with them again.”

This year the Festival joins forces with the Wilmington Earth Day Festival. Their event is on Saturday, April 23, making it a perfect weekend to come to Wilmington for both events.

“We appreciate our sponsors, Wild Earth and Superieur Electrolytes, for their

Southport NatureFest Southport NatureFest is an opportunity to engage and learn about our wonderful natural environment. This informational event is free and open to people of all ages.

continued support at each of our festivals for our 2022 season,” says Greenberg.

There will be music at the festival along with a Family Fun Zone for the children to enjoy playing with life-sized games, corn hole and many other fun options.

Wilmington Vegfest will take place, rain or shine, from 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 24, 2022. The event is outdoors at Legion Sports Complex on the backfield.

Admission is $10 for the general public, $5 for college students and the military and free for children and seniors over 65.

All are welcome to VegFest events and no one is ever turned away because of cost. Festival-goers, please BYOB (bring your own bags or bottles). Composting is encouraged and recycling bins will be available for non-compostable items.

For more information or to donate, please visit wilmingtonvegfest.com.

ilmington

Third Annual W

The NatureFest organizational committee is working to provide several outings in addition to the informational event.

Anticipated activities include a Green Swamp tour with Roger Shew, a bird boating tour provided via Southport Boat Tours, and a kayak outing through the Adventure Kayak Company of Southport. Details for these additional activities will be posted on the Southport NatureFest Facebook page; see https://www. facebook.com/southportnaturefest.

For more information, see also cityofsouthport.com/event/ naturefest. www.issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen

2

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24,

Vegfest

IEN

“Wild Neighbors: How to co-exist with NC Wildlife,” will be a presentation by Southport Animal Protective Services Officer Kate Marshall and will include a video by NC Wildlife Resources Commission. The location for this presentation will be the Indian Trail Meeting Hall on W. Moore Street.

APRIL

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There will be opportunities to learn about wild bird rescue, pollinator gardens, N.C. aquariums, litter prevention, recycling, sea turtles and other wildlife.

FO OD ”

NatureFest will be held on Saturday, April 30, 2022 at Franklin Square Park and the Indian Trail Meeting Hall on W. Moore Street, Southport. Exhibits will be open from 8:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.

Back Field Legion Stadium 2149 Carolina Beach Road Wilmington, NC 11am - 5pm General Admission - $10 College Students & Military - $5 Children & Seniors over 65 - Free

$

10

Admission

More info: WilmingtonVegFest.com

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green news

Legacy Architectural Salvage Plans Spring Events Legacy Architectural Salvage, the WIlmington source for historic windows, doors and other items saved from pre1960s buildings, plans two events in May. Both will be held outdoors by their warehouse at 1831-B Dawson Street, behind Stevens Ace Hardware. For more information about either event, visit

May 15, 2022 is the Deadline for the summer issue of Going Green

historicwilmington.com/legacy or email salvage@historicwilmington.com or call (910) 338-6443.

Spring Market May 14 Legacy Architectural Salvage plans a Spring Market on Saturday, May 14, 2022 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., held in honor of Preservation Month.

This market is specifically designed to help customers shop beautiful items from local artisans of every stripe! Join us on the second Saturday of May to shop curated vendors offering jewelry, vintage clothing, woodworking, plants, signs and art of all forms, including pottery, mixed media, upcycled goods and more.

The Legacy Architectural Salvage warehouse will be open during the market, and all are invited to pop in and shop.

All sales at Legacy benefit the Historic Wilmington Foundation’s mission, which is to preserve and protect the irreplaceable

Give us a call for Advertising Rates or Editorial Guidelines

pomegranate books “A good little bookstore… is a laboratory for our coming together.”

Ross Gay

“I love walking into a bookstore.

It's like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.”

Tahereh Mafi

ZOLA a waterways and ocean friendly, plastic free business roasting organic, shade grown and small farm coffee lots

4418 PARK AVE 910.452.1107 bring this ad for a free cookie with coffee bag purchase

26 www.goinggreenpublications.com

historic resources of Wilmington and the Lower Cape Fear region.

Appraisal Fair May 21 Legacy Architectural Salvage will hold its very first Appraisal Fair on Saturday, May 21, 2022 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Michael Moore (Michael Moore Antiques), Jim and Karen Booth (Cape Fear Antique Center) and their very own antiquarian-at-large Bill Petry will be on site to do informal appraisals of your cherished possessions, your oddball inheritances and your sundry “what-is-its?”

They do request that you limit yourselves to three relatively portable items.

This event is intended to be fun and informative—but is not meant to serve as a formal valuation that you can present to your insurance company, status-conscious neighbors or over-eager relatives. Our appraisers will be available to discuss something more formal, should you desire.

CFA Seeks Walks Coordinator Cape Fear Audubon is looking for a volunteer to coordinate their bird walks. This is a geat way to learn more about area birds and meet people who enjoy birding. For more information, please contact Nancy Buckingham at nancybuckingham16@gmail.com.

We’re Back! (to doing walks)

After over a year of staying isolated we are happy to get back to doing plant walks. We look forward to going to new places and are open to your suggestions.

If you would like to be informed on the walk schedule and other plant-related activities, go to www.ncwildflower.org and join the state-wide NC Native Plant Society. Based on your address, you will automatically be assigned to a local chapter. For the SE portion of the state, that is the SE coastal area chapter.

Native Gr

Native species are those local conditions requiring l wildlife, in particular our bi become invasive, outco

Southeastern Coastal Area Chapter

Questions? Email cewinterbauer39@gmail.com.

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

North Carolina Native Plant Society

The native plants below ar They all attract pollina If your local nursery d

Common Name

Scientific Name

Green-andgold

Chrysogonum virginianum

Sp or ye

Pussytoes

Antennaria plantaginifolia

Sp wh

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Bl Time

green news May 14, 2022 Is Global Big Day Global Big Day is an annual celebration of the birds around you. No matter where you are, join in virtually on May 14, 2022, help celebrate World Migratory Bird Day, and share the birds you find with eBird.

Participating is easy—you can even be part of Global Big Day from home. If you can spare five or ten minutes, report your bird observations to eBird online or with the free eBird Mobile app. If you have more time, submit several checklists of birds throughout the day. You never know what you might spot. Your observations help scientists better understand global bird populations. Last year, Global Big Day brought birders together virtually from more countries than ever before. More than 51,000 people from 192 countries submitted 134,000 checklists with eBird, setting four new world records for a single day of birding. Learn more at ebird.org, and get ready to count birds!

VEG-OUT Festival Returns in October The second annual VEG-OUT Festival takes place on October 22, 2022, from 11 a.m.–4 p.m. at Riverfront Park in Wilmington, North Carolina. Admission is free and the event is sponsored by the City of Wilmington.

VEG-OUT is a one-of-a-kind community-based event to engage curiosity and promote informed decisions on health and well-being and living a greener, more environmentally-friendly life.

VEG-OUT features local green vendors, traditional and alternative health care providers, green energy providers, fitness, yoga & meditation practitioners and vegetarian and vegan food vendors.

Links to Cape Fear Audubon Presentations Cape Fear Audubon had been holding its monthly meetings via Zoom and recording them for those who wish to enjoy them later. Here are links to three recent presentations of interest to those who love birds.

Topic: Tracking Bird Migration with Motus ~ Chris Tonra, Ohio State ~ October 6, 2021 Meeting Recording: https://bit.ly/3Mb58Nf Access Passcode: M0tU5Ta!k Topic: Impacts of Sea Level Rise on Saltmarsh and Seaside Sparrows ~ Marae Lindquist, UNCW ~ November 10, 2021 Meeting Recording: https://bit.ly/36a4fop Access Passcode: M@rshSp4rrow Topic: Winter Birds (+ Christmas Bird Count) ~ Jill Peleuses, Wild Bird & Garden ~ December 6, 2021 Meeting Recording: https://bit.ly/3uSTcdF Access Passcode: J!llWinter2021 For information on upcoming events, see the calendar on the Cape Fear Audubon website: https://capefearaudubon.org/ or visit https://www.facebook.com/Birdforlife246.

Introducing Going Green’s New Intern Ally Zimmerman is a current intern with Going Green through the Environmental Science Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). Ally is a senior at UNCW studying political science and environmental science with a concentration in conservation.

She stays involved at UNCW through various environmental groups on campus. She currently serves as the Communications Director of 350 UNCW and Committee Chair of UNCW Plastic Ocean Project’s Environmental Legislation Committee.

When Ally graduates, she plans to pursue a career in environmental science or environmental communication.

Going Green interns Shelby Diehl and Jessica Scudella, who started interning

photo by Nick Syracuse

Ally Zimmerman is Going Green newest intern.

with the publication in fall 2021, will continue working with Going Green in 2022.

See their articles in this issue.

Tri-Mindfulness, a fun 5k morning walk or run followed by a guided yoga session and ending with a meditation session, will also be part of the festival.

Organizers are currently accepting applications for vendors, practitioners and guest speakers.

For more information on the festival visit: www.veg-out.com. www.issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen

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All the words in the crossword can be found somewhere in the pages of this issue.

The answer key appears on page 30.

Crossword 1

2

3

4

5 6

7

8 9 10

11

12 13

14

15

16

Across 3. A critically imperiled butterfly in North Carolina threatened by construction in the Eagles Islands wetlands.

8. Change.

9. An exhibit where you can view rocks from the three regions of North Carolina.

12. The action or fact of consuming something in excess, such as food.

13. A small tree that attracts zebra swallowtails.

15. The branch of science concerned with classification.

16. Energy from the sun that is converted into thermal or electrical energy.

Crossword by Shelby Diehl.

28 www.goinggreenpublications.com

Down 1. A distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis.

2. An experiential education program focused on sustainable development.

4. A point of high land that juts out into a large body of water.

5. The surname of the newest Going Green intern.

6. A crowdfunding platform at UNCW. 7. An igneous rock that formed 180 million years ago.

10. The abbreviation for a self-regulated initiative meant to minimize plastic use.

11. A sense organ used while visiting nectar sources.

14. When an insect sheds their outer layer—such as an exoskeleton—to grow bigger or prepare for the next stage of life.

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

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green news Pohlman Joins CFPUA

Environmental Ed

Kathryn (Kat) Pohlman has accepted a new position with the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. She reports that she has enjoyed her time as the Chief Sustainability Officer at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) tremendously. She believes her new role at Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) is a natural progression in her career, and is excited about the opportunity to make a significant impact in the Cape Fear for neighbors and the environment alike. As Assistant Director of Environmental Management and Sustainability, she will build upon the existing sustainability program by reducing the environmental impact of the utility, creating partnerships within the community and implementing programs that support social equity and justice.

Cape Fear River Watch (CFRW) has a new Environmental Education Manager.

Marissa Blackburn recently began her role coordinating CFRW education programs, including summer camps, nature and birding tours, school field trips, educator workshops and community education days. She is thrilled to be part of the team at Cape Fear River Watch after having educated kids and adults previously at the Bald Head Island Conservancy and the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher.

Stitt Joins NC Museum of Natural Sciences After several years as Recreation Specialist for the City of Wilmington Community Services Department, where she worked at Halyburton Park, Jessica Stitt has accepted a new position at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Whiteville.

Do you have a new environmental job? Let us know!

E-mail us at editor@goinggreenpublications.com.

You may contact her at marissa@cfrw. us if you are interested in learning more about CFRW education opportunities through Cape Fear River Watch.

Live Nation Entertainment UNCW student and Peer Educator Jake Bergen has accepted a new position as Zero Waste Captain at Live Nation Entertainment. Live Nation is working to make sure trash generated during their concerts doesn’t include any items that could be recycled or composted. Zero Waste Captains position themselves at the area with the recycling, composting and trash bins, to help people know which bin to use when they are ready to trhow it away. After concerts, they clean up and go through each bag at the venue to separate items.

photo by Kevin Blackburn

Marissa Blackburn hikes a trail near Hot Springs, North Carolina.

Surfer Science Phytoplankton are the base of the ocean food chain, and areas just off the coast, sometimes referred to as “surf zones,” can be rich in populations of these organisms. Scientists would like to collect water samples there to analyze seasonal changes in phytoplankton, but it’s a challenging zone to position equipment.

Dr. Phil Bresnahan, an Assistant Professor in UNCW’s Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences, is a co-author of a new study entitled, “On the Seasonal Dynamics of Phytoplankton Chlorophyll-a Concentration in Nearshore and Offshore Waters of Plymouth, in the English Channel: Enlisting the Help of a Surfer,” published in the journal Oceans. The study emphasizes the potential for using marine citizen science—data collected by surfers—as a way to collect environmental data in otherwise challenging areas of the ocean. Learn more at https://bit. ly/3jNbGpe.

Mystic Elements Moved

B+O: design studio, PLLC

architecture / landscape architecture

mail: 1319-CC Military Cutoff Rd., PMB 221 tel: 910.821.0084 www.b-and-o.net

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Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

Mystic Elements, a metaphysical store in Wilmington, has moved from Park Avenue to a new location, giving them more space for their products and classes.

The store offers a wide variety of products to nurture one’s mind, body and spirit.

Stop in to browse their wide selection or shop their store online. The new address is 833 South Kerr Avenue, Wilmington. Learn more at mysticelements.shop. www.goinggreenpublications.com

29

30 www.goinggreenpublications.com

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

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Crossword 1 3 5

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8

6

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Across 3. A critically imperiled butterfly in North Carolina threatened by construction in the Eagles Islands

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Answer Key for the Crossword on page 28.

Crossword

Down 1. A distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis.

green business or news Green Baby Diaper Service Becomes Join the City Nature Challenge 2022!

The biggest wildlife scavenger hunt of the year is less than a The Little Bum Life & Diaper Service Is anyone you know in the market for cloth diapers? Have you wondered whatever happened to Wilmington’s Green Baby Diaper Service? New mothers and grandparents will be pleased to learn that this cloth diaper service is still available.

The Little Bum Life & Diaper Service is a newly-formed company serving eastern North Carolina from Swansboro to Jacksonville to Wilmington. Ms. Laijia Davis bought American Eco-Baby in Jacksonville and then Green Baby Diaper Service in Wilmington. Her new company has been rebranded as The Little Bum Life & Diaper Service. Using cloth diapers is a healthy, chemical-free and eco-conscious alternative to disposables—great for the environment and for your baby’s skin.

Prospective customers can sign up for the service online—the website offers convenient one-stop shopping so you can learn about the service, sign a contract to sign up for the service and pay for the first month. The company provides diapers, a diaper pail and diaper pail liner. All the customer needs to purchase is diaper covers. The company offers one-on-one Zoom sessions showing how to use the service. Accessories are also available for sale at her website.

Learn more at thelittlebumlife.com and its FAQs page or email Ms. Davis at thelittlebumlife@gmail.com.

Wilmington's source for pre-1960s doors, windows, flooring, furniture, and décor.

1831-B Dawson Street behind Stevens Ace Hardware

month away! The City Nature Challenge is an annual world-wide festival celebrating biodiversity. It started as a friendly competition between two cities in California, and has expanded to cover cities and rural areas around the globe. For the purpose of this year’s challenge, all North Carolina counties fall into one of five regions. Any observation you share on iNaturalist between April 29 and May 2 will automatically count towards the region in which you posted your observation.

“We need your help to document as many species of wild plants, animals, and fungi as possible!” says local organizer Morgan Freese. She invites you to join Team Coastal NC in making observations to showcase the amazing plants and wildlife of Coastal North Carolina on a global stage. “We are facing off in close competition with the Triangle, Charlotte Metro, Piedmont, and Western NC to be the best. Get ready to get outdoors and help us make this the Coastal Region’s best year yet!”

Visit nccitynaturechallenge.com to learn how to participate; it will show you who is the organizer for your region and offer a list of City Nature Challenge-themed events around the state, including in-person and online events at museums and nature centers around the state. Other helpful links for the Coastal NC region are https://bit.ly/3rwwPbg and Coastal NC region’s Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/419575705326041.

Do you love dogs? We do!

Please help UNCW and Stormwater Services understand dog owner awareness, attitudes and behaviors related to pet waste.

Complete the anonymous online survey by May 15, 2022 using the link or QR code below. The mostly multiplechoice survey should take less than five minutes to complete. https://tinyurl.com/petwaste2022

910.338.6443

Find us on Instagram, Facebook, and online at historicwilmington.org/legacy!

WED, FRI, SAT: 9am-2pm / THURS: 9am-5pm Legacy Architectural Salvage is an operation of the Historic Wilmington Foundation, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to preserving and protecting the irreplaceable historic resources of the Lower Cape Fear region. www.issuu.com/capefearsgoinggreen

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kids korner

Carolina Wrens Thryothorus ludovicianus

Carolina Wrens are part of the bird family. These little reddishbrown birds can be found all throughout the Eastern United States. In the spring time, you will be able to hear their songs. In fact, these birds are so dedicated to their songs that they sing them hundreds of times throughout the day.

These song masters have a unique feature. Unlike most other Wrens, the Carolina Wren male is the only one to sing in a loud voice. Other Wren species tend to harmonize songs between males and females—each singing their own section and weaving them together to make one song. Carolina Wrens let the males sing the loud sections while the females occasionally sing in a much quieter and lower pitch.

You are far more likely to hear these birds than see them.

Carolina Wrens are shy birds that can easily hide in bushes and trees. During breeding season, you may be lucky enough to have a family of these birds nesting in a fern hanging on your porch. They like to nest in places that are protected from predators where it’s easy to hide.

Female Carolina Wrens lay an average of four eggs per mating season. They lay one egg per day and the eggs hatch in about two weeks. Juvenile Carolina Wrens look very similar to adults. The birds have a reddish-brown back with a lighter belly, white throat and chin and brown wings with very thin black stripes. Carolina Wrens have a distinct white stripe over each eye making them easy to tell apart from other wrens. The main difference between a juvenile and an adult is that the juvenile is lighter in color.

Did You Know?

Carolina Wrens mate for life. When a male attracts a female using his song, the pair will remain together through not only mating season but also during the winter months. No wonder the males are so proud of their songs! Infact, they are so proud that a male Carolina Wren living in captivity was recorded to have sung nearly 3,000 times in one day.

True or False?

Carolina Wrens do not fare well in the winter, so they migrate south to avoid the drop in temperature.

Circle the Answer Which of these birds also mate for life, just like the Carolina Wren?

Goldfinches Robins Black Vultures Circle the Answer—Black Vultures.

True or False?—Most Carolina Wrens in the Carolinas live here year-round.

Answer Key 32 www.goinggreenpublications.com

Carolina Wren. Observation © Ken, https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/186326668. Background cropped.

What Can You Do to Help Carolina Wrens?

Carolina Wrens cannot tolerate cold, so during the cold months they will eat from suet feeders if available. Having these in your yard along with native plants that provide seeds and cold weather berries help these birds thrive in the winter months.

During breeding season, Carolina Wrens may use nesting boxes, but they must be protected from predators. Having a space in the yard that can become overgrown helps these birds hide easily and allows their young to have hiding spots from predators while they learn to fly. Keeping a brush pile in the yard also promotes these birds coming to your yard. These birds enjoy nesting in these perfect hiding places and you can enjoy their lovely songs.

In the spring and summer, Carolina Wrens mainly eat insects.

Having native plants in your yard that provide food and suitable habitat for insects provides an ideal food source for Carolina Wrens. One way you can do this is by waiting to clean out the garden until after the last frost of the season. This protects insect larvae from the cold and helps them develop into adulthood.

Common pesticides used on gardens and lawns pose a threat to Carolina Wrens. When insects consume these chemicals and the wren then eats the insect, those toxins are passed on to the bird. Eating one or two insects that have consumed pesticides may not kill the bird, but when the majority of their diet consists of insects that have been exposed to harmful chemicals, the birds can become severely ill or even die. Using natural pest deterrents, such as companion planting in gardens and creating a yard that promotes biodiversity, will help keep the insects free from pesticides.

Kid’s Korner is brought to you by Shannon Bradburn Pragosa.

Cape Fear’s Going Green • Spring 2022

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