headphones with nature

End of Summer Podcast Round-Up

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By Anna Lehr Mueser, Public Relations Manager

It’s been a summer of good listening and I wanted to share a few nature and science podcasts we listened to this summer that offered new insights, entertained us, and opened our eyes. Whether you’re a serious nature nerd, somebody who likes a good science podcast, or someone looking for a thoughtful take on the everyday world, there is something here to mull on.  Happy listening!

Radiolab logoRadiolab
From Tree to Shining Tree, July 30, 2016

“It’s as if the individual trees were somehow thinking ahead to the needs of the whole forest.”

In this Radiolab Podcast Short, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich go into the root systems of the forest, revealing the hidden world beneath the trees, and the strange, and sometimes inexplicable, activities of the trees.

Listen here.
35 minutes long.

Code Switch logoCode Switch
Made for You and Me, June 8, 2016

“What I have learned over years is that the natural story is connected to our cultural story and that national parks are actually a really incredible way to get both in one place.”

The NPR Code Switch team celebrated the 100th anniversary of our National Park Service by jumping into stereotypes and truths about people of color and the great outdoors.

Listen here.
20 minutes.

99 percent invisible logo99% Invisible
Unseen City: Wonders of the Urban Wilderness, April 26, 2016

“[Reading from book] ‘Ginko toxin is similar in structure to vitamin B6, and eating too much of it interferes with our ability to synthesize the vitamin.  That can provoke a biochemical cascaded that, especially in children, may lead to seizures and even death. This sounds alarming, but it wasn’t enough to deter me.’

 What does deter you from eating things?”

99% Invisible host Roman Mars interviews Nathanael Johnson about his recent book, Unseen City, chatting about the noble origins of the pigeon and Johnson’s adventures foraging in the city.

Listen here.
30 minutes.

hiddenbrainHidden Brain
Episode 27: Losing Alaska, April 19, 2016

“I realized at that moment that the debate over climate change is no longer really about science, unless the science you are talking about is human behavior.”

Shankar Vedantam’s Losing Alaska episode of his NPR Hidden Brain podcast offers a poignant view of our vanishing glaciers and why it is that we simply don’t act on climate change.

Listen here (scroll down to Episode 27).
25 minutes.

Children playing in a stream

The Importance of Learning in Nature

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By Guest contributor Debra Deacon, M.Ed., Lead Teacher at Kinder Academy

Children and nature go hand in hand, or at least it should. Research has shown how important it is to introduce children to nature especially in the early years. Children today, especially our inner city children have a very limited opportunity to connect with nature. How can we teach our children the importance of our environment if they have a disconnect with nature?

This became our goal when we introduced the children in the Butterfly classroom at Kinder Academy to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education’s Nature Preschool. Nature Preschool is a fabulous program where children can learn about nature as well as learn about themselves as they investigate and make new discoveries. We wanted our children to be able to experience nature first hand, and learn from children in their own age group. Continue reading →

Education, climate change, and the “fierce urgency of now”

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By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director

When a child graduates high school, the environmental education movement strives to make sure that student is environmentally literate—she understands how the world works, maybe even takes actions to improve environmental systems.

As the climate quickly changes, those graduates need to know about global warming.  Martin Luther King, Jr., in a completely different context, referred to “the fierce urgency of now,” and environmental educators feel that urgency, as weather is warming, seasons are shifting, oceans are rising, glaciers are shrinking, the icecaps are melting, wildfires are raging, and species are disappearing at rates faster than many models once predicted.

But hold on. Continue reading →

Bryophilia: A Moss Love Story

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By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art

I’ve had a moss fascination as long as I can remember. Friends find me difficult to hike with, as I’m often hanging back crouched down over a mossy growth. I have taken more photos of moss than most people would probably find reasonable. In college, I did a research project on the ‘moss line’ in a montane stream – the bright line I observed where moss stopped growing on the creekside rocks. I own more than one piece of moss jewelry.

Moss on stones of river, Puerto Rico

Why moss? I think I’m fascinated by how often overlooked these life forms are, and the unique niche they occupy. I love their scale – tiny, yet complex. I relish encountering patches of moss that feel like entire, tiny little worlds in themselves.

Moss on stone in Cook Forest, photo by Christina Catanese Forest floor moss in Cook Forest, photo by Christina Catanese Moss between rocks in the Great Smoky Mountains, photo by Christina Catanese

Emboldened with a newly acquired moss field guide, last fall I started gathering my own samples and trying to get into the identification. I’ll tell you, it isn’t easy to do as a wannabe bryologist. Pleurocarp or acrocarp – are they large or small? (They are all small). Leaves – are they hair-like, lance, ovate, sickle or tongue shaped? (You call those tiny things leaves?). Do the leaves have a midrib? (Yikes). Growing on a rock, log, or bare soil? (Shoot…where did this specimen come from again?).

Examining moss in the Great Smoky Mountains

Our summer gallery show, Bryophilia, has given me a wonderful excuse to immerse myself even more in the world of moss.   We’re thrilled to present a gallery show of artist Marion Wilson’s stunning photographs of microscopically enlarged mosses. Wilson prints intricate and lush photographs of tiny sprigs of moss on treated mylar sheets, hundreds of times the normal size. From afar, these magnificently scaled up prints appear to be alien forms; they invite a closer look to interpret their curious shapes and structures. We’ll even have some real, live moss growing in the gallery.

Moss on rock photograph by Marion Wilson

I’ve also been reading Gathering Moss, by renowned bryologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, professor of environmental biology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and collaborator of Wilson’s. It’s a beautiful natural history read even for those not involved in a mossy love affair. Kimmerer blends botanical, scientific knowledge with her indigenous heritage, encouraging discussion of diverse ways of knowing; this is on full display in a recent podcast through On Being, a terrific listen.

Having my moss antennae up, I’ve started to see moss everywhere: cracks in the city sidewalk become an opportunity to notice nature thriving in unexpected contexts. What most would call unkempt roof shingles become a de facto green roof, with moss left to do its own, slow thing.  As I tell friends about our upcoming gallery show, closet moss lovers are coming out of the woodwork, sharing their own cherished moss facts.

When you look small, the world gets large.

Heart shaped by moss, photo by Christina Catanese

Bryophilia opens at the Schuylkill Center in the gallery with a reception on Saturday, June 11 from 4-6 pm.

Baby screech owl eating breakfast

Good Forecast for Ridley the Screech Owl

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By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director

On Monday, May 16, Cecily Tynan, meteorologist at 6ABC’s Action News, was running in Tyler Arboretum when she discovered a young screech owl on the ground, “squawking,” as she called it in a video she posted to Facebook (seen by 80,000 people as of this afternooon), and, clacking its beak at her.

She called the Wildlife Clinic at the Schuylkill Center, listened to the phone machine’s instructions, and smartly threw her outer garment over the owl’s head to calm it down, which is exactly what to do—and brought it to us in a box.

It was promptly assigned case number 0965, the 965th animal brought to the clinic so far this year—we get about 3,300 annually.

Ridley the owlLuckily, its wings were not broken, but it had fallen out of its nest, usually a cavity in a tree, and was severely dehydrated—likely without a mother, it presumably had not eaten in a while, as its food is where it gets its water.

The owl, named Ridley by Cecily, is about a month old, thinks Rick Schubert, the clinic’s director.  It’s still a nestling, not yet having its wing feathers grown in enough to learn to fly. Continue reading →

Searching for the Delaware Valley’s Green Giants

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By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director, @SCEEMike 

Almost 50 years after her too-soon death from cancer, Rachel Carson still inspires the environmental community.  Pennsylvania’s gift to environmental thinking, Carson’s groundbreaking Silent Spring jumpstarted the modern environmental movement—and every green book published since has been compared (unfavorably) to it.

In fact, she casts such a long shadow that most environmental centers still talk about programming that “produces the next Rachel Carson.”  That is our highest goal; she is our Holy Grail.

Every year, the Schuylkill Center honors an environmental leader with our Henry Meigs Environmental Leadership Award, named for one of our founders, a delightful gentlemen who, just after Silent Spring came out, envisioned a nature center on these hundreds of acres—and shepherded the organization through its growth pains over the next 30 years as a board member.

Without Henry, odds are high we would not exist.  Continue reading →

Art in a Changing Climate

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By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art

Bill McKibben wrote, in a 2005 essay on climate change and art, “But oddly, though we know about it, we don’t know about it. It hasn’t registered in our gut; it isn’t part of our culture. Where are the books? The poems? The plays? The goddamn operas?”

Climate change is abstract, cognitively complex, with no clear single villain; dialogue around climate change often induces self-defensiveness, the steps needed to respond require long time horizons, and many of the victims are distant, in either space or time.  More so than many other environmental issues, climate change is a social as well as scientific challenge, making it even harder to wrap our minds around. For decades, climate scientists have tried to make their work resonate, but too often, the result is either data overload, or fear and warning of dire and disastrous consequences, which people tune out. Mounting evidence shows that our brains are simply not wired for this kind of abstraction – we respond subconsciously based on emotion, not data.

Luckily, artists are good at appealing to these parts of ourselves, with the ability to activate our imaginations, catalyze mindshifts, motivate change and action, and develop outside-the-box solutions. Continue reading →

Earth Day: Become 1 of the 1 Billion Participants

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By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director

This Friday, April 22, marks the return of Earth Day—and check this out—on that day, estimates are that one billion people from 200 nations will mark the day.  Earth Day has quietly emerged as the largest secular holiday worldwide with the exception of New Year’s Day.

And this year’s edition will be even more newsworthy, as many countries will begin signing the groundbreaking Paris climate change treaty that day at the UN in New York.

As big as it is, Philadelphia played a key role in Earth Day’s birth. Continue reading →

Children Need Nature: Cultivating Connections at Nature Preschool

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Children Need NatureBy Shannon Wise, Nature Preschool Manager

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

At Nature Preschool, the foundation of community is vital to building a positive learning experience for the children. We value the relationships among families, children, and school. We invite our families and friends (from Schuylkill Center, Kinder Academy, and neighboring schools) throughout the year to share their talents, read stories, or participate in art activities to strengthen the bond and build comfort and trust among all of us. This spring, our preschoolers enjoyed many visits to meet new brothers and sisters, explore each different family’s cultural traditions, art, music Nature Buddies, and the work with our wonderful Wildlife Clinic.  Enjoy some pictures from this spring!

Why we’re excited for spring

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By Anna Lehr Mueser, Public Relations Manager

Happy spring!  On March 20, despite a sprinkling of snow, the year officially turned from winter to spring!  So, why are our staff excited for spring?

Gail, our Director of Education loves seeing the rise of skunk cabbage on the late winter forest floor.

Mike, our Executive Director, explains, “I love so many individual critters for so many different reasons, but one I especially adore is the blackpoll warbler.  If warbler migration is a parade of colors, the blackpoll is the tramp clown at the end of the circus parade, mopping up after everyone.  Around Memorial Day, I listen for their distinctive squeaky-wheel call and smile–the last migrating warbler in the long parade is here!”

Claire, who coordinates volunteers including our Toad Detour program, is most excited to see the first toads of spring migrating across Port Royal Ave (the first one was spotted March 9 in fact).

Write Barbara, one of our Monkey Tail Gang staff members, “I have been delighted to see the return of the Canada Geese.  Last year I was near Fire Pond when they came zooming down from the sky, squawking joyously.  This year I’ve seen them hanging out around Fire Pond and cautiously watching the lively antics of our after-school crowd, the Monkey Tail Gang.”

Both Christina, our Director of Environmental Art, and Donna, our Director of Administration and Finance, are excited for the longer days.  Christina is especially happy for “the gradual crescendo of all the growing things coming back to life” and Donna loves “the smell of spring, that earthy, musky refreshing scent.”