Category: Education
Day of Service and Reunion at Nature Preschool
January 29, 2016By Shannon Wise, Nature Preschool Manager
At Nature Preschool, support the connection among parents, teachers, and the Schuylkill Center as a whole. Preschool is often an early opportunity for parents to make connections with other families over shared values and interests. It is our goal to strengthen and foster these relationships through families’ time at the Schuylkill Center. In our first year running the Nature Preschool program, we hosted a day of service on Dr. Martin Luther King Day. Last year, we invited past preschool families to the Center for a reunion in the spring. Both events were great experiences…
Dear 2040: Damien Ruffner wonders about the future
December 2, 2015By Damien Ruffner, Program Coordinator: Camps & Afterschool
October 2, 2015
Dear Future Program Coordinator: Camps & Afterschool,
I hope this letter finds you well. As I sit here wondering what 2040 will look like at the Schuylkill Center, I can’t help but wonder if even the position will exist in that year. I have been here exactly three years as I write this and my title has changed three times in as many years. So I imagine it will continue to grow and evolve as the programing we offer moves forward.
I’m not sure if compensation time will still…
Children Need Nature
December 1, 2015By Gail Farmer, Director of Education
I was born in 1975, part of Generation X, probably the last generation whose parents felt comfortable sending their kids out into the neighborhood after school. “Go outside and be back by dinner,” was a common directive from my mother. Behind my house was an undeveloped hill, and “The Hill” was where my sisters and I went when my mom sent us outdoors. My childhood was also filled with Girl Scouts, dance classes, and community soccer, but my best memories and my most formative experiences come from the times my mother wanted nothing more than…
Dear 2040: Climate change activist Richard Whiteford thinks about the future
October 30, 2015By Richard Whiteford
Hello. My name is Richard Whiteford. I’m writing to you on August 24, 2015. I’ll turn 69 next month so, if I live to be 94, there’s an outside chance that I can be there when you open this capsule.
In my lifetime I’ve watched humans destroy the world’s biological diversity to the point of increasing the extinction rate to 1000 times the natural background rate from habitat loss and climate change. For instance, fish populations are crashing, agricultural areas worldwide are being decimated by extreme droughts. Many rivers are running dry from the loss of glacial…
The Start of the Year at Nature Preschool: Discovery Walls
September 30, 2015By Shannon Wise, Nature Preschool Manager
The Discovery Wall
As you scan the walls in each Nature Preschool classroom, you will find our Discovery Wall. It is a space filled with photographs of animals, plants, or natural objects along with categorization labels. This blend of play, experience, and science tells a story much deeper than what you encounter at first sight.
Being outdoors and exploring in nature is the heart and soul of our Nature Preschool. Each and every day the children travel the trails, open to the possibilities of the environment. It could be a multi-colored leaf, a wiggly…
The Pope and Climate Change
September 23, 2015By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
Before Pope Francis arrives in Philadelphia on Saturday, he will present groundbreaking speeches, one to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, the other to the United Nations on Friday. He’s likely covering a number of hot-button topics, including immigration, poverty, homelessness...
...And climate change. The pope, blessedly fearless, walks where angels fear to tread. His June encyclical, Laudato Si’, or “Praise be to you,” rocked the world in its condemnation of how we treat the environment, using language no pope and too few world leaders have used before. Humanity’s “reckless” behavior and “unfettered greed”…
Fridays in the Field: A Wagner Free Institute of Science Yard Adventure
July 6, 2015By Guest Contributor Annie Zhang
Throughout the year, the Wagner Free Institute of Science hosts groups for interactive, science focused field trips. Though the winter chill confines groups to our Victorian-era natural history museum and lecture hall during most of the school year, summer allows us to expand our teaching landscape to our large and beautiful yard.
Our yard is a grassy, serene, tree-filled oasis that wraps around our building and is a rare sight in our mostly-concrete North Philadelphia neighborhood. It contains many “living teaching tools.” One is a bee-friendly flower garden that allows children to view our most…
Making nature relevant: finding common ground
June 18, 2015By Gail Farmer, Director of Education
This April marked the 45th anniversary of Earth Day, and we have come a long way since that huge 1970 event. But clearly, we have a long way to go: a recent study by the National Environmental Education Foundation found that two-thirds of the public fails even a basic environmental quiz and a whopping 88% cannot pass a basic energy quiz. This same study found that 45 million Americans think the ocean is a source of fresh water and 130 million believe that hydropower is America’s top energy source.
Alarmingly, this environmental literacy gap…
Nature Preschool loves Earth Day
April 30, 2015By Shannon Dryden, Nature Preschool Manager and Sweet Gum Classroom Lead Teacher
At Nature Preschool, our children are immersed in outdoor experiences daily, connecting them to their surroundings and the Schuylkill Center in a meaningful way. At events like Naturepalooza, the children show their expanding knowledge and the bonds created through open-ended exploration. Learning through play and touching, feeling, smelling, tasting, and hearing is what these children do best and it brings joy and happiness in many ways. Just look at the smiles! Below, some highlights from Earth Day and Naturepalooza with our preschool.
[gallery type="slideshow" ids="266289,266284,266285,266286,266287,266288"]
Children Need Nature is…
Earth Day and the Green Tsunami
April 22, 2015By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
On Wednesday, April 22, 1970, 45 years ago today, more than 20 million Americans participated in the largest mass demonstration in American history, some 1 million in New York City alone. They marched wearing gas masks and buried cars in mock graves protesting polluted air, threw buckets of dead fish into the lobbies of corporate offices to protest polluted water, and carried signs with grim messages like “RIP: Earth.”
It was the first Earth Day. Reflecting back, it’s too easy to forget how angry people were about a polluted planet back in 1970.
In Philadelphia,…
