Author: news
Introducing Carole Williams-Green
October 18, 2016By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
On November 17, the Schuylkill Center presents the 11th annual Henry Meigs Environmental Leadership Award, given to leaders who reflect the spirit and vision of Schuylkill Center founder Henry Meigs.
This year, we honor Carole Williams-Green, the dynamic founder of the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center in West Philadelphia. A former public school teacher and administrator, she has led a successful multi-decade effort to rehabilitate the historic but abandoned Fairmount Park Police stables in Fairmount Park’s Cobbs Creek section, creating a center to bring environmental education to under-served neighborhoods like her own West Philadelphia. …
Art + Time at the Schuylkill Center: a 2017 wall calendar
October 13, 2016By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
One of the most important aspects of environmental art is leaving time for nature to respond to an art work. Change is a constant in the natural world, and when artists venture outside the controlled setting of the studio or gallery, art must be responsive to change, time, and seasons.
Indeed, many environmental art works are not complete until nature has had time to respond and artists have had time to understand and reconcile change in the work. Stacy Levy’s Rain Yard needs rain to fall for the collaboration with water to happen;…
Children Need Nature: What is a Nature Preschooler?
September 30, 2016By Nicole Brin, Sycamore Classroom Lead Teacher
Children Need Nature is a monthly blog column from our Nature Preschool program. Read more posts here.
A Nature Preschooler is a 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old child who is part of a program which uses the natural world as the primary context for learning. They develop the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical skills needed for Kindergarten while immersed in daily outdoor experiences.
But a Nature Preschooler is more than that...
A Nature Preschooler is curious. Learning the value in discovering answers for themselves. Studying the movement of a snail up close, wondering why some leaves turn…
Reading Under the Bark
September 20, 2016By guest contributor Jim Frazer
I’ve been trying to remember what led me to photograph the engraved tracks of bark beetles. I believe that really it was just curiosity about looking for lines and patterns in nature which first drew my attention to the etched pathways of the beetle larvae. Once I became aware of them, they seemed to be everywhere in the woods. In an effort to understand what I was looking at, I did some research, and found out that the beetles’ increased range and activity was due to warming.
Since climate change seemed to come on us…
End of Summer Podcast Round-Up
September 1, 2016By Anna Lehr Mueser, Public Relations Manager
It’s been a summer of good listening and I wanted to share a few nature and science podcasts we listened to this summer that offered new insights, entertained us, and opened our eyes. Whether you’re a serious nature nerd, somebody who likes a good science podcast, or someone looking for a thoughtful take on the everyday world, there is something here to mull on. Happy listening!
Radiolab
From Tree to Shining Tree, July 30, 2016
“It’s as if the individual trees were somehow thinking ahead to the needs of the whole forest.”
In this Radiolab Podcast…
The Importance of Learning in Nature
August 19, 2016By Guest contributor Debra Deacon, M.Ed., Lead Teacher at Kinder Academy
Children and nature go hand in hand, or at least it should. Research has shown how important it is to introduce children to nature especially in the early years. Children today, especially our inner city children have a very limited opportunity to connect with nature. How can we teach our children the importance of our environment if they have a disconnect with nature?
This became our goal when we introduced the children in the Butterfly classroom at Kinder Academy to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education’s Nature Preschool. Nature…
Education, climate change, and the “fierce urgency of now”
July 7, 2016By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
When a child graduates high school, the environmental education movement strives to make sure that student is environmentally literate—she understands how the world works, maybe even takes actions to improve environmental systems.
As the climate quickly changes, those graduates need to know about global warming. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a completely different context, referred to “the fierce urgency of now,” and environmental educators feel that urgency, as weather is warming, seasons are shifting, oceans are rising, glaciers are shrinking, the icecaps are melting, wildfires are raging, and species are disappearing at rates faster than…
Bryophilia: A Moss Love Story
June 2, 2016By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
I’ve had a moss fascination as long as I can remember. Friends find me difficult to hike with, as I’m often hanging back crouched down over a mossy growth. I have taken more photos of moss than most people would probably find reasonable. In college, I did a research project on the ‘moss line’ in a montane stream – the bright line I observed where moss stopped growing on the creekside rocks. I own more than one piece of moss jewelry.
Why moss? I think I’m fascinated by how often overlooked these life…
Good Forecast for Ridley the Screech Owl
May 17, 2016By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
On Monday, May 16, Cecily Tynan, meteorologist at 6ABC’s Action News, was running in Tyler Arboretum when she discovered a young screech owl on the ground, “squawking,” as she called it in a video she posted to Facebook (seen by 80,000 people as of this afternooon), and, clacking its beak at her.
She called the Wildlife Clinic at the Schuylkill Center, listened to the phone machine’s instructions, and smartly threw her outer garment over the owl’s head to calm it down, which is exactly what to do—and brought it to us in a box.
It…
Searching for the Delaware Valley’s Green Giants
May 13, 2016By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director, @SCEEMike
Almost 50 years after her too-soon death from cancer, Rachel Carson still inspires the environmental community. Pennsylvania’s gift to environmental thinking, Carson’s groundbreaking Silent Spring jumpstarted the modern environmental movement—and every green book published since has been compared (unfavorably) to it.
In fact, she casts such a long shadow that most environmental centers still talk about programming that “produces the next Rachel Carson.” That is our highest goal; she is our Holy Grail.
Every year, the Schuylkill Center honors an environmental leader with our Henry Meigs Environmental Leadership Award, named for one of our…
