While many skylights waste energy, two local building experts have designed a skylight that actually saves energy by ventilating, providing daylight and generating solar power. The patent is pending but the results are already clear at Yellow Springs High School, where two skylights were installed last month.

When local architect Ted Donnell began working with the Greene County Career Center five years ago, he brought with him an environmental ethic that culminated in a $6.1 million energy upgrade over the summer, replete with geothermal heating and cooling and an insulated roof.

At the sixth annual Tecumseh Land Trust auction on Friday night, more than 200 farmland supporters bid on donated products and services, with all proceeds going to support the land trust.

On Sept. 14, Geno Luketic and Dianne Collinson of John Bryan Community Pottery in Yellow Springs, Ohio fired their pottery in the studio’s gas-fueled raku kiln.

When a drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico this spring and millions of gallons of crude oil began gushing into the ocean, one local company jumped at the opportunity to monitor the toxic oil’s movement and measure its environmental contamination — YSI Incorporated.

When conflict arises in the village, one local organization stands ready to reconcile differences and make peace — the Village Mediation Program. For 21 years, the program’s trained volunteer facilitators have mediated crises free of charge between neighbors, families and businesses, saving villagers thousands of dollars in legal fees and the frustration of prolonged disputes.

For more than 40 years, John Bryan Community Pottery has been an educational resource and incubator space for developing potters. Now, the local artists’ cooperative is expanding its well-equipped studio by adding a wood-fired kiln, one of a handful of such kilns in the region.

Drawing attention to the plight of gay, lesbian bisexual and transgender people of faith around the country, next weekend the Yellow Springs First Presbyterian Church will host a national exhibit of liturgical stoles representing 1,000 homosexual clergy members of 32 religious denominations, many who have been excluded from serving in their church due to their sexual orientation.

On Wednesday the Yellow Springs High School golf team hosted Bethel at Locust Hills golf course in Springfield. The team drove, chipped and putted their way through the course on a beautiful early fall day, ultimately losing the match by a score of 172-211.

At the new Rolling Pen Book Cafe, patrons can relax, read a book and enjoy a cup of coffee with some homemade cobbler. Newly opened in the space formerly occupied by Dolbeer’s Cleaners, the book cafe is the vision of Springfield residents Brenda Stone Browder and her husband, Loren.