Children Need Nature: Jardín de Español

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By Eduardo Dueñas, Environmental Educator

Children Need Nature is a monthly blog column from our Nature Preschool program. Read more posts here.

 

In the course of my week, I have the opportunity to give a Spanish class to the kindergarten class at the Schuylkill Center. I honestly can’t hide my happiness when I enter the classroom and see children eager to practice and learn new words in Spanish—words that they use every time when they pass by me in the hall. I am amazed at the speed and retention that a child of four or five years has when learning a new language. Ideally, I believe kids should start learning a second language from an early age—they can carry the interest and skills with them for the rest of their lives! Continue reading →

Four Black-led Initiatives Nourishing a Greener Philadelphia

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Happy Black History Month! This February, we’ve been honoring Black leaders in the environmental movement.

Here are four of the many Philadelphia-based environmental initiatives led by Black educators, healers, scientists and activists you can support not just this month, but all year round.

Continue reading →

Children Need Nature: Rainy Day Hike

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Children Need Nature is a monthly blog column from our Nature Preschool program. Read more posts here.

Activity: Rainy Day Hike

You will need:

Rain gear

  • Raincoat
  • Umbrella
  • Hat
  • Rain boots

FunInTheRain_KE_2.16 (5)What to do:

  1. On a rainy day (either during or after the rain stops), go outside and take a walk around your neighborhood. Follow the path of rainwater from your roof, your doorstep, or the sidewalk in front of your house. Where does it lead?
  2. Is the water carrying anything with it? Where do you think these objects end up?
  3. Notice areas where the water puddles. Why do puddles form in some places but not others? RainYard_KE_9.9 (3)Optional step: See how big of a splash you can make!
  4. If you follow the water to the end of your street, you might see it flow into a storm drain. Where do you think the water goes after that?

Continue reading →

Roxborough’s Toad Rage

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By Claire Morgan, Volunteer Coordinator & Administrative Assistant

closeup toadIt’s early spring, just around sunset, and the conditions are just right—55 degrees and humid. A high-pitched trilling rings out in the distance. The shallow water of the Upper Roxborough Reservoir Preserve stirs with excitement. The toads of Roxborough are ready to run—and ready to attract a mate.

On some evenings, as many as two hundred toads can be seen heading from the Schuylkill Center’s forest to the Upper Roxborough Reservoir Preserve in a period of just two hours. The steady stream of traffic at the intersection of Hagy’s Mill Road and Port Royal Avenue (that separates the forest from the preserve) presents a huge obstacle to the toads as they cross the road in preparation for their springtime mating ritual. Continue reading →

School District Partnerships Bring Outdoor Education to Classrooms

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By Damien Ruffner, School Programs Manager

One year ago, the Schuylkill Center entered a partnership with Extended School Day Care Center (ESCC), an organization in the Norristown School District that provides extracurricular programming to families in the Norristown community. This mentorship program connects Schuylkill Center educators with district students, allowing us to bring the wonders of the natural world into an afterschool setting far away from our forest. Continue reading →

Getting to know rivers through art

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By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art

An underwater video of the Brandywine River underwater, from Dylan Gauthier's highwatermarks: six ways of sensing the river, a micro level investigation of environmental issues that affect rivers and streams throughout the world

An underwater video still of the Brandywine River, from Dylan Gauthier’s highwatermarks: six ways of sensing the river, a micro level investigation of environmental issues that affect rivers and streams throughout the world

What’s in a name? It’s one of the first things we ask someone, but can be quickly forgotten. It’s often given to us by others, yet is expected to serve as a distillation of our identity. Who gets to decide a name is a question layered with power dynamics, whether it be people, places, organisms, or ecosystems.

Despite these complexities, in a 2017 New York Times op-ed, Akiko Busch wrote, “Giving something a name is the first step in taking care of it.” Thinking of bodies of water, a name is an opening, a prelude, a microcosm, a way to be known—a first step on the pathway to meaningful connections between people and nature.

This winter, the Schuylkill Center will open Learn a River’s Name, a new exhibition in our art gallery. It’s a group of seven projects guided by this question: how can art help us to know a river’s name, to not only value it but know it, and therefore to seek to steward it?  With a focus on water bodies in the Mid-Atlantic region, seven artists explore rivers and streams within driving distance of the Schuylkill Center—the Schuylkill, Delaware, Brandywine, and Hudson Rivers. Continue reading →

Naturalist’s Notebook: Giants of the Forest

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big tree (3)By Andrew Kirkpatrick, Manager of Land Stewardship

An excerpt from this piece was published in our winter newsletter in December 2018.

Now that leaves are falling, the giants are revealing themselves in the forest. No, not the fairy tale variety—the trees. Walking the Schuylkill Center’s trails in the summer months, they remain mostly hidden from view. They’re tucked away from sight, obscured by cork trees, devil’s walking stick, and their own young. But once the crisp fall days arrive, the giants appear. Continue reading →

2018 is the Year of Water

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By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director

“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”
Ben Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac

Water is essential, both to our planet and to our programming. School groups search for living creatures in our ponds while Nature Preschoolers stomp through puddles and play in the mud kitchen. Summer campers hike along creeks, raft in whitewater, and snorkel in the ocean, while University of Nature adults discuss global water issues.

This will happen even more in the New Year, as 2018 will be the Year of Water across our programming. We’ll begin with the Richard L. James Lecture on February 8, inviting six prominent thinkers to talk about water and end next November, when the Henry Meigs Environmental Leadership Award is given to a visionary regional leader whose work revolves around water. Continue reading →

Children Need Nature: The Art of Tree Climbing

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By Alyssa Maley, Lead Preschool Teacherchildren_need_nature

Children Need Nature is a monthly blog column from our Nature Preschool program. Read more posts here.

I remember the moment during my childhood when I developed a bond with my favorite climbing tree on my front lawn—a Japanese maple. This tree was particularly challenging because it did not have lower branches. I had to jump up, grab a branch, and then swing my legs up moving my body like a monkey. Then I used my upper body strength to pull myself to begin the vertical climb. I have so many fond memories of tree climbing—I spoke to fairies, peeked into the second story of my house, and observed my world from a higher perspective. I had no adult assistance or supervision; it was just me and my tree. I learned how to listen to the branches—to assess the broken ones, and pick the safe, sturdy ones. I halted my climb when the branches moved quickly in the wind because I was able to assess the risk. I became a successful climber through practice, patience, and perseverance.

Continue reading →

Rain Yard through the years

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By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art and Liz Jelsomine, Exhibitions Coordinator

Rain Yard by Stacy Levy at The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education

Editor’s note: The Schuylkill Center produced a wall calendar for 2017 in celebration of the environmental art program. Throughout the year, we’ll run a monthly post on our blog highlighting the art works featured in that month of the calendar.

Rain Yard is an interactive artwork by Stacy Levy that has been on display in the Schuylkill Center’s Sensory Garden since October 2013. Rain Yard provides a function of mitigating stormwater runoff from our building, while highlighting the critical role soil and plants play in the water cycle. Its open steel platform allows rain to filter down, plants to grow up, and people to hover somewhere in between. Continue reading →