Embracing the spirit of its name (The Green in Dover and the New Castle Green), The Green will provide an open-air meeting place for Delawareans to discuss events, consider issues and share ideas. This radio and online magazine will present the highest quality Delaware news and information. Through informed reporting, nuanced storytelling and in-depth interviews, The Green reaches past stereotypes and knee-jerk reactions to encourage a fuller, more robust discovery of Delaware, today.
Rep. Carney offers opposition to Atlantic coast oil drilling plan
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Last week, the Obama administration offered its support to a plan that would open portions of the Atlantic Ocean off the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern coasts to oil exploration and drilling.
It’s part of a congressionally-mandated five-year plan from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that would set the boundaries for oil development leases in federal waters through 2022. The leasing proposal will be finalized later this year after public comment and government officials say it is “early-stage” plan, but it has some lawmakers, including Delaware’s lone Congressman John Carey, concerned.
A similar proposal was offered in 2010, but canceled in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Carney and others say it should be left out again this time for a variety of reasons and he visited The Green this week to explain why and discuss other energy policy issues.
New report card grading Delaware public schools coming soon
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The state Department of Education is creating a new report card for grading Delaware’s public schools. The new report card will replace the school profiles currently posted on the department’s website – profiles DOE concedes are difficult to understand and navigate.
Superficially, the effort is deciding what the grades should look like. Should they be A,B, C, D and F, just like the report cards the kids bring home? Or green, yellow and red, like a traffic signal?
But there’s also the work to decide the components that will go into the rating system, and the weight each measurement carries.
Delaware Public Media contributor Larry Nagengast recently went to school on the new system, exploring why and how it’s being developed, when we’ll see it and what it could mean for schools that receive high and low grades. (More)
Arts Playlist: Gentle Jones and Delaware's hip-hop scene
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Living on opposite sides of the world wasn't a barrier for a Delaware MC and a producer from Ireland when it came to creating their new project.
The duo High Elders say the world is a lot smaller thanks to the internet and that’s how Wilmington’s Gentle Jones and Carlow Ireland’s Auxilliary Phoenix were able to craft their new 11-track effort, "Forest of Pencils.”
Gentle Jones is the stage name of First State native Bill Ferrell, a network technician for the Delaware Division of libraries.
In this week’s Arts Playlist, Delaware Public Media’s Cathy Carter talks to Gentle Jones about Delaware’s rich hip hop history, how the genre is evolving and High Elders place in expanding its boundaries.(More)
Enlighten Me: UD physicist remains hopeful despite debunked gravitational waves discovery
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Since Einstein published his general theory of relativity in 1916, scientists have searched for signals from the first moments of the universe, the Big Bang. These signals are called gravitational waves, ripples formed in the curvature of space-time.
Nearly a year ago, the European Space Agency announced that scientists had finally detected these ancient gravitational waves. However, some scientists were skeptical, suggesting that what the telescopes detected instead was dust from the Milky Way.
As it turns out, the skeptics were right. Last weekend, the European Space Agency withdrew its claims, after data from the Planck telescope confirmed that they had in fact detected galactic dust.
Delaware Public Media science reporter Eli Chen spoke with Qaisar Shafi, a University of Delaware theoretical physicist about what the reversal means. (More)
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