What kind of tree? Scan the QR code tag in 2 Murrysville parks
In addition to the myriad of other uses for smartphones, they can now help nature enthusiasts find out more about two Murrysville parks.
Friends of Murrysville Parks members Pia van de Venne and Bill Davis spent an unusually warm afternoon recently adding QR code tags to posts throughout Duff Park. By digitally scanning the codes, smartphone users are connected to Web pages hosted by the municipality that provide information about the types of trees in the park.
The group is placing four of the tags in Duff Park and five in Townsend Park to start, van de Venne said.
“The municipality had chosen to spend some money in Duff Park — they wanted to build a gazebo,” she said. “But we said if we're going to do a project, let's do one on tree identification.”
The Friends group brought in two local Murrysville students as interns, who looked at the existing tree signs — located throughout the parks on black locust wood posts that are hardy and rot-resistant — researched the trees and created the QR code tags.
Davis, who has been a member of the Friends group for about six years, said the group was using special one-way screws to affix the tags, making them harder to remove. He expects they'll get a lot of use.
“Duff Park is probably the busiest of the 11 parks in Murrysville,” he said.
The Friends group is busy as well, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm temperatures to get a head start clearing out invasive plant species, evidenced by several large brush piles across from the main trail that runs alongside Turtle Creek.
“We still have some work to do on that,” van de Venne said.
Davis said van de Venne does more work in the parks than just about anyone.
“I'm here five or six days a week, probably between four and six hours a day,” she estimated.
She is not alone: Friends volunteers in January and February worked more than 110 hours in the municipality's parks.
The group welcomes donations, and meets regularly on the first Monday of the month between March and December.
Patrick Varine is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review.
He can be reached at 724-850-2862 or pvarine@tribweb.com.
