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N.C. A&T students will design an 'outdoor experience' at Toyota megasite

The Toyota manufacturing megasite under construction in the Triad will also be a destination for nature lovers, thanks in part to students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. 

Portions of the 300-acre tract of woodland adjacent to the battery manufacturing facility will be converted into what’s being called an “environmental education forest” which will include a lake, overlooks and trail system.

The work is being done by students from N.C. A&T’s undergraduate landscape architecture program, the only one of its kind in the state.  

Professor Steve Rasmussen Cancian is leading the project. He says the end result will give area children the opportunity to explore the outdoors.

"It's not just creating a place that's natural, but it's actually a place that our students are intentionally designing, thinking about how young kids of color, particularly African American kids, how they have heard about and not yet experienced the forest, and might even think of it as something that's dangerous," says Cancian. "And so how do you create a place that will really make them comfortable, and enable them to create their own organic connection to nature?"

The environmental project is Toyota’s second investment in N.C. A&T. The company has also awarded a $500,000 grant to its College of Education to foster learning in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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