Category: Events
Artist Profile: Jane Carver
July 3, 2017
By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
Imagine the quiet of a grove of tall pine trees, the impressions of your footsteps barely audible on a cushion of pine needles, punctuated by the occasional bird or creaking limb. Now, imagine the soundscape also includes an ethereal voice accompanied by the haunting notes of an accordion. You’ll have the opportunity to experience precisely these sounds this summer, as artist Jane Carver performs a special one night only concert in our Pine Grove.
Carver is a Philadelphia-based artist and musician who is part of our summer exhibition, Making in Place. She started…
Schuylkill Center Old Fashioned Recipe
October 15, 2015By Anna Lehr Mueser, Public Relations Manager
This past Saturday afternoon was idyllic: the early fall light streamed through the trees golden and green, the air was crisp, but not cold. And 130 friends of the Schuylkill Center gathered in Jubilee Grove to celebrate our 50th anniversary, wrapping up the year of special events. We dedicated Jubilee Grove and it’s new Binney Meigs sculpture, our Nature Preschoolers sang a delightful song for us (“Schuylkill Center Dream”), Judy Wicks and Maya van Rossum both read letters to 2040 (look out for their letters on the blog soon), and our education director…
A Real Picnic: Celebrating 50 Years
July 15, 2015By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
Editor’s Note: We celebrated our 50th anniversary with a public picnic on July 11, 2015. Below is an excerpt from Executive Director Mike Weilbacher’s remarks at the event.
On July 1st 1965, a young science teacher reported to his first day of work, and what was then called the Schuylkill Valley Nature Center opened its doors to the public. The science teacher’s name was Dick James, and Dick went on to build one of the country’s premier centers for environmental education, retiring almost 20 years ago in 1996. His widow Karin directed our Center’s library…
Natural Dyeing: from plant to fabric
June 30, 2015By Guest Contributors Elissa Meyers and Mira Adornetto
After pulling out green cotton fabric from a naturally fermenting indigo vat, our workshop group watches excitedly as the green transitions into a dark indigo blue. This incredible process, which occurs as the indigo dye oxidizes has been used for thousands of years in numerous places and cultures. Throughout human history, color has been applied to fibers on every continent, starting as far back as 2,600 BCE. Plants, shellfish, and insects: wildflowers, trees, mollusks and bugs, have been used to dye fibers.
Since the industrial revolution dyeing went from natural colorants like…
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,…
Wetlands and WetLand in the city
January 19, 2015By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
Often, when I fly into Philadelphia International Airport, I imagine what a bird’s eye view of the area must have looked like back before Philadelphia became the bustling metropolis it is today. If I squint just the right way, I can almost see how the flat expanse of skyscrapers and rowhomes transforms to green, how South Philly and even the airport itself melt into the freshwater tidal wetlands that were once in their place (the last remnant of which is still visible at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge). (more…)
Giants of the Forest: Reading the forest
December 15, 2014By Melissa Nase, Manager of Land Stewardship
Every day at the Schuylkill Center I am reminded of the passing of time, the history of the land, and the immense power of plants to change our landscape. Amazed at how the trees could grow so tall in just 50 years, I stand in awe of the towering tulip poplars (also called tuliptrees) which rise high above old fields once clear cut for agriculture. As winter approaches and vegetation retreats, ruins and farm walls of old homesteads - signs of literally hundreds of years of human occupancy - reveal themselves as markers…
Trick-or-Treating Through the Years
October 9, 2014By Ezra Tischler, Arts and PR Intern
[caption id="attachment_123980" align="alignleft" width="150"] Halloween hikers gather before heading out on a night walk (1977).[/caption]
The forest can be a scary place at night. Its unfamiliar sounds reach out from the darkness, telling a nocturnal tale we humans seldom hear. However, the nighttime forest is full of much more than fright. By the light of moon, the forest comes alive. Owls screech and hoot; frogs croak; skunks, raccoons, and opossums forage through the forest floor; bats flap about in search of something to eat. A wondrously active forest is born each night.
At the…
The Biggest Day in 50 Years
September 17, 2014By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
This piece was originally published in the Roxborough Review on Thursday, September 10 in the column Natural Selections
Saturday, September 27 might just be the biggest day in the Schuylkill Center’s storied 50-year history. On that day, we’re offering the first bird seed sale of the year, the last native plant sale of the year, and launching the University of Nature, a full day of outdoor learning for adults. We’re beginning the day by presenting the ninth annual Henry Meigs Award for environmental leadership to Ann Fowler Rhoads, and ending the day by unveiling a new show in our…
Local Food Culture in Philadelphia: A look at a growing movement
April 30, 2014By Daphne Churchill, Intern and Educator
A bright sunny Saturday draws you out for a morning walk. You look up the street and see the white tents with tables of fresh products: red radishes, leafy green lettuce, freshly cut flower bouquets, free-range eggs, fresh goat cheeses, liquid amber honeys. The tables are bountiful and the tents abundant. Neighbors chat with one another as they nibble free samples and discuss their purchases. You overhear growers converse about sustainable practices and their business with the consumers as they debate and make their purchases. This typical scene of a farmer’s market has become…
