Tag: news-import
Redefining School
August 17, 2017by Nicole Brin, Assistant Director of Early Childhood Education
Preface: The past 7 years teaching young children have taught me more about myself, our education system, and human nature as a whole than I could ever have imagined when starting out. The most recent 4 years spent teaching with the Schuylkill Center Nature Preschool have broadened my views of what is possible in the world of education and led me to the next step in my professional journey. As I move out of the classroom and into the role of Assistant Director of Early Childhood Education, I hope to learn, share, and…
A playground for artists, Part I
August 3, 2017
By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
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.
Part of the Schuylkill Center’s mission is to use our forests and fields as a living laboratory; for the art program, that means that we provide opportunities for artists to use our site as an place for experimentation in their artistic practice - which can some times look and feel a lot like…
Naturaleza por dentro
July 20, 2017Por: Eduardo Dueñas, Lead Environmental Educator | For an English version of this blog post, see here.
Siempre me encantaron los olores, colores y sabores de los dias. Yo era un nino inquieto que le gustaba levantar piedras en el patio de mi casa para ver que sorpresa me esperaba. Ese mismo nino que corria afuera cada vez que llovia para poder oler la tierra mojada.
Un nino que durante los partido de futbol le gustaba chupar pedazos de cesped y tirar piedras al rio.
Desde muy temprana edad me interesaron las plantas y los animales, gustos que me llevaron a…
Nature from Within | Naturaleza por dentro
July 20, 2017By Eduardo Dueñas, Lead Environmental Educator | Para una versión en Español de este post, por favor ver aquí.
For as long as I can remember, I have always loved the scents, colors, and surprises of each day. I was a curious child who always liked to pick up rocks in the yard of my house to see what surprise awaited me underneath- a colorful beetle, a squirmy worm, or a family of ants. That same curiosity drove me to run outside everytime it rained to feel the rain and smell wet earth. I was the curious kid who would suck…
Red-tailed Hawks at the Franklin Institute: The Benjamin Franklin Parkway as Wildlife Habitat
July 13, 2017By guest contributor Christian Hunold, Associate Professor, Department of Politics, Drexel University
In the spring of 2012 I stumbled across a community of amateur naturalists who were drawn to Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway not by the museums or the cultural events, but by a pair of red-tailed hawks nesting on a second-story window ledge of the Franklin Institute. Grid Magazine had requested some pictures of the hawks, and so I spent one sunny afternoon in late May photographing the half-grown chicks huddled on the nest at the corner of 21st and Winter Street.
I recall feeling a little bored: where…
Naturalist’s Notebook: The Missing Sponge
July 11, 2017
By Andrew Kirkpatrick, Manager of Land Stewardship
If you take a walk along Smith Run, coming up Ravine Loop below Penn’s Native Acres, the hillsides where the beeches, oaks and maples grow show signs of distress. The structural roots of the trees are visible at the soil line when they should be tucked away cozily wrapped in the warm blanket of leaf litter and organic rich soil. Instead, because of exotic invasive earthworms, which can be observed by scraping away the thin layer of leaves on the ground, the roots are exposed and left to fend for themselves in all…
(Un)Natural Perspectives
July 6, 2017By Christina Catanese, Director of Environmental Art
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.
Works were exported from the studio and given a new life outside for Out of Bounds, a show presented in collaboration with The Center for Emerging Visual Artists in 2012. From June to September that year, work was placed against the backdrop in which it was inspired by - the natural world. Some…
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…
Prescribing Nature in Philadelphia
June 28, 2017By Aaliyah Green Ross, Director of Education
Dr. Chris Renjilian, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) pediatrician, sees nature and play as essential parts of his primary care practice. But he worries that his guidance isn’t always enough. NaturePHL is about to change that. With NaturePHL, pediatricians like Dr. Renjilian will be prescribing nature to children across the city.
This summer marks the official launch of NaturePHL, a collaborative program that helps Philadelphia children and families achieve better health through outdoor activity. It’s a collaborative involving four core partners - the Schuylkill Center, CHOP, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, and the United…
Citizen Science: at the Schuylkill Center and Beyond
June 22, 2017By Guest contributor Anna Forrester
Seven years ago, my partner and I became the enthusiastic owners of an abandoned farm in central Pennsylvania. The property included an early 20th century bank barn, complete with a resident colony of bats. Reports of white nose syndrome and its devastating effects on the area’s bat populations had recently begun appearing in the media and – though we hadn’t had any up-close, intimate experience with our bats -- we soon found ourselves working to help track the spread of the disease and the fate of our bats by participating in the Appalachian Bat Count…
