Author: admin
Typical Summer Camp at the Schuylkill Center
July 12, 2021Now that summer is here and covid-related restrictions have loosened, summer camp at the Schuylkill Center is in full swing giving many kids their first taste of freedom in over a year. This summer follows an atypical school year, when most students spent all or part of the academic year learning from their desk, bed or dining room table. They adjusted to long school days in front of a computer screen, without recess or the opportunity to socialize with their classmates. For those that attended school in-person, connecting with friends was a challenge with face masks, reduced class sizes, physical…
Tom Landsmann, Roxborough’s Own Johnny Appleseed
June 28, 2021Roxborough’s Tom Landsmann is a cross between Johnny Appleseed and the Energizer Bunny-- he just keeps on planting and planting and planting… Over the last 20-plus years, Tom has either personally planted or helped plant thousands of trees in just about every public space in Roxborough: Gorgas Park, Germany Hill. the Wissahickon, the Upper Roxborough Reservoir Preserve, the Schuylkill Center, along the towpath. You name it, he has planted something there.
Even better, many of the trees he plants were lovingly grown by himself on his plot of land on River Road, right up against the Schuylkill and across the…
A Roxborough First: The First Iraqi Guesthouse Built Outside Iraq in 5,000 Years
June 21, 2021[caption id="attachment_272873" align="alignright" width="549"] Phragmites used to build bench and Iraqi guest house (Al Mudif)[/caption]
On Thursday evening, June 24 at 7:00 p.m., the Schuylkill Center invites you to a historic event. We are unveiling Al Mudhif - A Confluence, a very special installation in our forest. For more than 5,000 years, Iraqi inhabitants of the lower Mesopotamian valley, the cradle of civilization, have been building guesthouses-- mudhifs in Arabic-- out of reed grasses. Incredibly, this will be the very first time a mudhif (pronounced “mood-eef”) has ever been built outside of Iraq. Ever.
And it is in Roxborough.
The…
The New Abnormal
June 14, 2021With the mercury rising into the 90s most of last week, it felt like August already, the air heavy and humid. The bad news, of course, is it’s not only not August, it’s not even summer. The solstice is still a few days off…
Welcome to life in the New Abnormal, the climate changing before our very eyes.
It’s not only getting hotter, it’s getting wetter. The skies opened up last Tuesday evening, flooding the region-- again-- with a dumping, a good downpour here in Roxborough, but a startling 7 inches of rain near Coatesville. For perspective, that was two…
Reflecting on 10 years at the Schuylkill Center
June 7, 2021[caption id="attachment_272834" align="alignright" width="269"] Mike planting trillium, 10 species, one for each year of his tenure[/caption]
When Mike Weilbacher first came to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education 40 years ago, he never imagined he would one day become its executive director. In 1982, he arrived in Philadelphia, new to the city and fresh out of grad school, to work as an educator under legendary founding director Dick James.
As he marks the 10th anniversary of his return to the Center, Mike reflects on the transformations of the last decade—and looks ahead to the next challenges.
Back in 2011, Mike…
Biden: Changing the Climate on Climate Change
November 28, 2020When President-elect Joe Biden assumes the presidency in two months, he takes the helm with as many front-burner issues as any president ever, even FDR and Lincoln. He’s got to handle a raging pandemic with its horrific economic fallout, a long overdue reckoning on race, and a collapsing climate. All at once.
Consider climate. As Election Day dawned, a typhoon with gusts of 235 mph plowed into the Philippines to become the strongest storm to make landfall in world history. Here in the Atlantic this year, we set a record with 29 big storms, exhausting the English alphabet and moving…
Wild Turkeys: The Truth Behind the Bird
November 26, 2020Even in this crazy, complicated COVID year, Americans of all shapes, sizes and colors-- maybe just fewer in number-- will gather around tables overflowing with colorful cornucopias of food. And whether that table includes cranberry sauce or couscous, tortellini or tortillas, the centerpiece of the meal is likely that quintessential American bird, the turkey.
Consider that turkey, one of our biggest natural neighbors. Likely one of your holiday plates includes an image of the tom turkey, chest all puffed out, strutting its stuff. That's not how turkeys appear in November. Sleeker, thinner, turkeys are now forming winter single-sex flocks, a…
Pam DeLissio: ‘Voters Want to be Heard’
November 21, 2020While razor-thin voting margins characterized so much of the electoral landscape this month, state Rep. Pam DeLissio, D-194, cruised to an easy reelection victory for her sixth term in Harrisburg, racking up more than 74% of her district's almost 37,000 votes.
I talked to her last week over the phone, and she laughed when she told me that “a voter I met asked me if I had to work hard for this win. I told her I work hard every day.” And she does.
A self-described “moderate, centrist, middle-of-the-road” politician, she bristles when anyone suggests these traits show a lack…
Visiting the Center
November 8, 2020
Our Visitor Center is open from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm weekdays and Saturday; our Sunday visitors may park at the Hagy’s Mill lot and walk on our trails, as always, but the Visitor Center remains closed on Sundays.
We welcome you to visit our exhibits, art gallery, and gift shop. And you can even purchase our world-class birdseed again!
Visitors are required to wear masks. There are posted limits on the number of people in each room, and our reception staff is behind a Plexiglas barrier, all for the protection of both you and our staff.
The Wildlife Clinic…
Bea Kelly Marks 20 Years at the Schuylkill Center
November 6, 2020If you’ve visited the Schuylkill Center anytime in the last 20 years, there’s a great chance you’ve met Roxborough’s Bea Kelly, who this week celebrates her 20th anniversary as a member of the center’s staff. Our program registrar, Bea served as our receptionist for 15 of those 20 years,so if you’ve walked in the front door to come to an event, see our art gallery, drop off a preschooler, or buy our special bird seed, you’ve likely said hello to Bea.
To mark the occasion, the staff created a bee-friendly garden (pun intended, get it?) at the front door near…
