Author: admin
Two Great Summer Flowers: Monarda and Milkweed
June 20, 2022
If you come to the front door of the Visitor Center this week, two extraordinary-- and extraordinarily important-- flowers are waiting to greet you, two flowers you should not only know, but plant in your own yards.
The bright blossoms of Monarda, commonly known as bee balm, greet you first, their scarlet red flowers simply impossible to miss. Can a flower ever get more red than this?! That color is a clear signal as to who pollinates it, as hummingbirds are highly attracted to red flowers. Also, check out the long floral tubes, specifically evolved to allow a hummingbird to…
Lankenau Students Wins Meigs Youth Award
May 9, 2022We established the Henry Meigs Youth Leadership Award in 2005 as a memorial tribute to one of our center’s founders. The award honors students who have demonstrated exceptional leadership, interest, curiosity, or accomplishment in the environmental arena. While nominations were solicited in prior years, the Center held an essay contest to determine this year’s recipient, a contest open to students at Roxborough’s three public high schools-- Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School, Walter B. Saul High School, and Roxborough High School-- with the winner receiving a $1,000 scholarship gift.
Candidates submitted essay responses to the prompt “What is the biggest…
Blueberries, A Local Classic
September 27, 2021[caption id="attachment_273273" align="alignnone" width="617"] Highbush blueberries are one of the best parts of summer, and one of the only truly native foods to our region.[/caption]
If you have never had the joy of walking or kayaking through the New Jersey Pine Barrens, this fall should be your first time. A short drive but a far cry from the hustle and bustle of Philadelphia, this quietly rugged wilderness is defined by fragrant conifers towering overhead and lush stands of fruiting shrubs at waist height. The crunch of sand under your feet, the soft lapping of water at creek’s edge, a fresh…
Missy Horrow: “I Feel Like I Have Come Home”
August 31, 2021[caption id="attachment_273174" align="alignnone" width="640"] Missy Horrow, Director of Early Childhood Education[/caption]
Last Wednesday, the teaching staff of Nature Preschool at the Schuylkill Center gathered to begin preparing for the post-Labor Day opening of the school. Starting its ninth year, our staff will again immerse three-, four- and five-year-olds in the natural world in all seasons. And once again, for the third school year, our staff will try to steer their students through pandemic whitewater-- but that’s a story for another day.
That evening, Missy Horrow, the school’s new director, wrote in her Facebook feed, “today was the first day of…
Schuylkill Center Intern Redesigns the Entrance Garden
August 23, 2021[caption id="attachment_273125" align="alignnone" width="640"] A masked Schuylkill Center intern Jamel Shockley weeding the front entrance garden with volunteers.[/caption]
“It’s the first thing people see when they walk in the front door. It’s like the first word of a play or the first note of a song-- if it catches your attention and draws you in, you’re already off to a good start.”
Hearing the Schuylkill Center’s intern, Jamel Shockley, talk about redesigning the gardens in front of our main entrance, it is easy to share his enthusiasm. A lifelong Philadelphian and recent Drexel graduate with a degree in environmental science,…
Schuylkill Center Mandates Vaccines for Staff
August 16, 2021On July 3, Philadelphia reported all of 177 cases of COVID-19 across the city, the lowest number since the pandemic’s beginning in March 2020. It seemed-- felt, hoped-- we were FINALLY crawling out of the pandemic’s pit.
Then the highly transmissible delta variant struck, the fourth wave ramped up, and for the week ending August 7, the city reported 1,238 cases, a 700% increase in only one month. $%$#@!
So last week, to almost no one’s surprise, Mayor Jim Kenney reestablished a masking mandate in the city.
The Schuylkill Center decided we needed to respond to this disappointing wrong-way bend…
Creativity inspires curiosity
August 12, 2021[caption id="attachment_273081" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tina Plokarz and Deenah Loeb[/caption]
The Center’s Board of Trustees bid a fond farewell to Deenah Loeb, who completed three consecutive three-year terms. For most of her tenure, Deenah chaired the environmental art committee working very closely with that department’s director. She has been a tireless advocate for our environmental art program and guiding the use of our land as a living laboratory for how an art program enhances an area’s natural habitat.
Fellow board member, Leah Douglas, appreciated Deenah’s legacy and said, “her dedication, thoughtfulness, and commitment to the art committee has been inspirational. She…
New Mystery Illness Killing our Birds
August 2, 2021[caption id="attachment_272993" align="alignnone" width="880"] A robin that has passed away from the new mystery bird illness sweeping across the country. Photo courtesy of Tamarack Wildlife Center.[/caption]
Listen to Chris Strub, Director of Wildlife rehabilitation on WHYY's Radio Times discussing this disease (starts at 32:00)
For bird enthusiasts, this spring had an ominous touch of COVID deja vu. Young birds were falling ill with alarming symptoms and dying-- and no one knew the cause. Most commonly impacting starlings, blue jays, and grackles, the illness typically shows up with weeping, crusted-shut eyes and neurological symptoms. And like COVID, some birds are asymptomatic,…
Something wicked this way comes
July 26, 2021[caption id="attachment_272978" align="alignnone" width="300"] Severe Storms Bring Damaging Winds, Hail and Power Outages to Region[/caption]
Last Wednesday, I was standing in the parking lot of a nature preserve in Blue Bell, wondering what to do-- should I stay and gut it out, or get the heck out of the way?
I was looking up and west, and the sky above me was dark and getting darker, the angry sky of a powerful storm quickly moving in. I thought of a witch’s line from Hamlet that became a Ray Bradbury novel that morphed into a Jason Robards movie: something wicked this…
Iraqi refugee brings a piece of his culture to Philadelphia
July 19, 2021[caption id="attachment_272963" align="alignnone" width="300"] Artistic team of Al Mudhif at the Schuylkill Center (Yaroub Al-Obaidi, Sarah Kavage, Mohaed Al-Obaidi). Photo: Rob Zverina.[/caption]
A house built of five crossing arches made of reeds spanned over knotted joists and lattices. Columns and walls strung together with rope and twine, encompassing a breezy and light-flooded space. A shelter in the middle of the woods at the Schuylkill Center. Upon entering, the reed structure offers a shady sitting area with carpets and pillows, inviting guests to gather and relax. Al Mudhif - A Confluence is the new art installation by Iraqi designer Yaroub Al-Obaidi…
