Wet Earth Day

Inside activities saved the day

By TOM KANE

PIKE & WAYNE COUNTIES, PA — Marty Strassinger stood in the cold, misty rain outside the PPL Learning Center, his collar up, his shoulders hunched, waiting by the Audubon Society’s activity display to teach children about fishing. No children wanted to stay out in the rain.

Inside the building, naturalist Nathaniel Whitmore tried to get people to go outside and search for medicinal herbs on the center’s grounds. He had no takers.

Elsewhere in Wayne and Pike Counties, few people participated in the planned roadside clean-up under a falling mist and an outside temperature of 38 degrees.

Mother Nature wasn’t buying into human beings’ interpretation of Earth Day, but was providing something that the earth really needed: lots of rain.

The activities were part of the Great PA Clean-up, scheduled for dates in April across the state.

Meanwhile, inside the dry and warm PPL Center on the banks of Lake Wallenpaupack in Hawley, eager children and adults crowded around the educational displays from area environmental groups.

Chelsea Holbert, from the Environmental Club of the Wallenpaupack Area High School, was stationed in the PPL lab to teach elementary school students about fish. She rolled ink on to a rubber replica of a trout and pressed it on display paper.

“This way, students can actually see what various fish look like,” she said.

In the same lab, Andrew Bascom, Wallenpaupack’s senior candidate for the National Honor Society, set up six microscopes to observe species of plankton. “This is my community service, which is part of my application to the honor society,” he said.

Whitmore, who will conduct edible and medicinal plant tours during the summer months, was selling colt’s foot, mullen and catnip tinctures.

“Dry herbs don’t last very long,” he said. “But when you put them in a tincture of alcohol, their medicinal potency can last for years. They can help stop infections of all kinds.”

Deb Suzadail, of PPL, demonstrated a fuel cell that converts hydrogen into electricity.

“The cell generates electricity with no combustion,” she said. “Fuel cells extract hydrogen out of water and convert it into electricity. It is very efficient, has low emissions, produces very little noise and is very reliable.”

PPL has several fuel cell programs with the Sheraton Hotel Corporation, she said. The on-site power plant at the hotels uses natural gas and provides about 10 percent of the hotel’s electricity and hot water.”

The Earth Day demonstration has been held at the PPL Center since its opening three years ago.