Tag: news-import
End of Summer Podcast Round-Up
September 1, 2016By 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
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…
The Importance of Learning in Nature
August 19, 2016By 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…
Education, climate change, and the “fierce urgency of now”
July 7, 2016By 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…
Bryophilia: A Moss Love Story
June 2, 2016By 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.
Why moss? I think I’m fascinated by how often overlooked these life…
Good Forecast for Ridley the Screech Owl
May 17, 2016By 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…
Searching for the Delaware Valley’s Green Giants
May 13, 2016By 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…
Art in a Changing Climate
April 28, 2016By 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,…
Earth Day: Become 1 of the 1 Billion Participants
April 21, 2016By 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. (more…)
Children Need Nature: Cultivating Connections at Nature Preschool
March 30, 2016By 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…
Why we’re excited for spring
March 21, 2016By 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…
