Environmental lecture series at Carnegie Mellon features urban farming

A series of talks at Carnegie Mellon University on topics related to urban farming (permaculture, local economies, youth development, and technologies), endocrine disruption, and environmental justice. There is no charge for these lectures, and all the details are below, including how to get there, for those not familiar with the CMU campus.

Urban Farming talks are all from 5:30 -7PM in Rangos 1 & 2, in the University Center

Urban Farming: Reconnecting Our Farms, Food, and Community - A Partnership with the Urban Farming Initiative of Pittsburgh

Next session: Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Topic: Urban Farming with Youth

Speaker: Patricia Gray, Executive Director
The Food Project of Boston, Lincoln, MA
http://thefoodproject.org

The Food Project has been farming with young people for over 15 years. For ten of those fifteen years, we have farmed in Dorchester and Roxbury, two low-income neighborhoods in Boston, MA. We now farm on two and a half acres, including a rooftop site. The food we grow on our urban farms is distributed through three streams: farmers’ markets, donations to hunger relief organizations, and our kitchen and culinary businesses. This workshop will focus on The Food Project’s work in the City of Boston—finding and procuring usable land, distributing local, fresh food to those who have little access to it, working in a community, running successful farmers’ markets and involving youth in all aspects of this

Getting to the CMU environmental talks:

Free parking is available on campus after hours (very simply, in the lot at Forbes & Morewood, and with gates and card-machines in the parking garage a bit closer to the University Center -- but the open lot is not far, either, just drive in off Forbes on the west side of the intersection and go left through the open gates). Many city buses stop at that intersection, as well; check out Bus Schedules.

To find the U.C., look at the tall sculpture accurately named "Walking To the Sky" from Forbes avenue, and the U.C. will be on your left. Inside the building, look up and you'll likely see signs above the corridors; the Rangos rooms are on the second floor.

Here's a Google map, as well.

Click on "hybrid" in the upper right-hand corner of the map to see the campus up close and personal (yes, you can even see people. The current image appears to predate Walking To the Sky, though.).

Baker Hall, where the non-farming talks will be held, is on Frew Street near the Hunt Library.